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. How do you build a deeper relationship when it's never been modeled for you? It's why today I'm challenging you to take your marriages to another level because I want your kids to see something better. I want this culture to see something better.
Well, that's Dan Seaborn, and he's our guest again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, offering practical encouragement for your marriage. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. Dan has a very humble, humorous approach to the ups and downs of married life. And last time, he shared how the Lord convicted him of being too critical and argumentative with his wife, Jane.
To the point where, during one fight, Jane became very despondent and said, I was just hoping we could live out the rest of our days together peacefully. Yeah, you can hear her heart there. And Dan, as a full-time speaker and marriage coach, was a bit taken aback by that because he thought things were pretty good. Right. And that led Dan to some deep conversations with the Lord where he began to discern the principles he's been sharing with us.
If you missed part one of Dan's presentation yesterday, please visit our website. We are including this entire message in a free collection of audio downloads called Nurturing the Heart of Your Spouse. Or get the Focus on the Family app for your smartphone to access all of our episodes. Yeah, and you can learn more when you follow the link in the show notes. Here now is Dan Seaborn speaking at New Tribe Church in Mount Julia, Tennessee, on today's Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
So here we go. Number next. Developing A genuine Friendship. There are plenty of people who are married. who aren't friends.
Plenty of them. Maybe even in this room, there would somebody be somebody in here who you go. We coexist. But we're not really close. The Bible says there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
It doesn't say marriage partner right there, it just says his friend. And I want you to choose that that will be your spouse. It's a choice. When it said God made them companions It doesn't describe the level of companionship they have. Just so they're companions.
And I use my parents here as an illustration. They were companions, but they were never friends.
So, what I'm going to do today is, I'm going to show you what I call The friendship circle. It's gonna come up on the screen, looks a little bit like the Target logo. And you're going to get to pick where you are in your relationship. We're going to go from the outer circle, we're going to work our way in, and you're going to get to define: what kind of friendship do we have?
So here we go. That outer green circle we're going to call chums. And using my parents, I would tell you they had a chum relationship. Chums see each other. They're together eight hours a day because they come home from work, and so they are there together, and then they go to sleep.
But they don't really talk. I never remember. Seeing my mom and dad sitting talk. No charms. Low-level friendship.
I mean, I think if one of them was about to die, the other would say, I probably should take you to the hospital. But it wasn't close. I'm just being honest. And Jane grew up, her parents were divorced, so me and her never saw. Anything more than chumness.
And so we didn't know what it was like. How do you build a deeper relationship when it's never been modeled for you? It's why today I'm challenging you to take your marriages to another level because I want your kids to see something better. I want this culture to see something better.
The next level of friendships is what I call companions. The best way to describe companions would be like people you work with. That's the way I think of a companion. You're going to work, you work on an assembly line, you work in construction, you work as a teacher, and you see this person eight hours a day. You become companions.
Because you work alongside each other all the time. That's a companion friendship. And some of you have that kind of marriage. We do. We get the mail together.
We look at it. We eat dinner together. We watch a T V show together. We're companions.
Now, we don't discuss stuff like this stuff you're talking about, Dan. It really sounds good for people who want to go plus, but that's not us. We're just kind of companions. People see us together at church and go, ah, here come the so-and-so's. We sit together in the same seats at church, and we worship, we even hold our hands up.
We're good companions. But we don't have next level depth conversations. They're just companions, and it stops there because that looks good. You've checked the box. People go, oh, look, they're riding in the same car.
They're good. Then the next level of relationship is what I call comrades. The best way to describe this, just to give an illustration of it, would be kind of like your small groups at church.
Some of you are in a small group here at church, and when you get together, you've gotten now you've been together a year or two, you actually get in there and go, Well, we are dealing with something with one of our children, and we want your prayer about it, so we're going to share it with you. That's next level. That's becoming vulnerable. That's becoming open. And there are some of you who have that.
And you comrades. You care. It's deep. I would actually tell you. If I had to give you a picture of what I think most church couples are, I would pick either companions or comrades.
They're not the next level yet. We'll talk about that in a second. But their good companions are their good comrades. And that's their marriage. And it's fine.
It's fine. But it's not Plus.
So I want to tell you how it hit me. what the next level is. I've always thought, you know, Jane and I. Have that next level, I believe. But I was in a place where something happened, and as soon as it happened, I went.
That's it. And I'm going to tell that story.
So I do some speaking for the U.S. military. And I've had a privilege of doing a lot of stuff at Fort Bragg. And so I come and speak. and talk to them about how to keep their marriage together thousands of miles apart.
So I had finished. We all went to break. They had a little longer break. They had more food and that kind of stuff. For us, just sitting, they wanted to do like an early brunch because they were going to do something later.
So I sat down at a table with Four couples, so all of them were married. And I sat down at the table with him and I said, Hey guys, I came down here to speak. I don't really know y'all. I mean, I know your commander, I know you're a platoon, I get all that, but tell me about. You guys like How do y'all do what y'all do?
They said, Well, actually, we're we're special forces. And the four of us, and there were four in this case there were four men. In some situations there were ladies, but in this case it was four men and their wives sitting at the table. And I said, Are you guys a they said, Yes, we're a strike force. I said, explain to me what you do.
They said, well, We're being taken into one of the military active areas right now, and we will be in a Black Hawk helicopter, and there will be a rope. And they said, our job is to secure buildings.
So they'll take us by Black Hawk helicopter, they'll hover over a building, they'll drop a large rope, and we four climb down the rope, drop into the building, and then our job is to go and secure that entire building, then report that we've done it. I was like, wow. And I said, well, what do you do? And they go, well, we all are trained specifically to do certain thing. I said, Tell me what you mean.
So the first guy goes, Well, I'm actually a medical doctor.
So though I can do all the other things that need to be done, I'm there in case somebody gets shot, somebody gets hurt, something blows up, I'm to do surgery. Like, I'm here to keep everybody alive medically. That's my job. I said, so, like, someday when you retire, yes, I'll go work in a hospital, et cetera. I'm just a medical doctor.
That's what I do. Awesome.
Next guy, what do you do? I'm a sniper. I'm like, oh. I've seen movies about like stuff. I said, are you any good?
And the other guy said, let us speak for him. He can strike a match at 100 yards. And I was like. That's awesome. And the next guy, what do you do?
He said, well, did you ever see the TV show MacIver when you were younger? I said, yes, I like MacIver. He said, I'm MacIver. I can take anything we find, anything we can do. I can take a thimble and a string and make a bomb.
That's just what I do. We need to get into a room. I can figure out a way to blow up something to get in that room. I was like, that's awesome.
So we go through, and all of them explain to me what they did. And then I said to them. Tell me something you'd want me to know about you guys. I said, like, you're about to go. You know, I'm a pastor.
I'll pray for you. Tell me something you'd want me to know. Listen to this. One of them looked right at me. I still get chills on us.
This is crazy. He looked right at me. He said, Dan. I'll tell you this. If you ever hear that one of us dies, You're going to hear all four of us died.
Because we are each other's, you ready? Confidant. And I mean I was like Okay. That is to the core. And as soon as he said the word confident, I went, that's it.
Marriages need to get to that level. If you ever hear that I'm hurting, she's hurting. If you ever hear that he's going through a great trial at work, we're going through a great trial at work. I'm You're. Confident.
And let me just say to you, let me show you something that the Lord kind of laid on my heart. Jesus was our confidant. He didn't chum around with our relationship. He went to the dead center, blood red, gave it all. And he says to us men in the room, I want you to do that for your wife, the church.
True. It's a whole different gig, see? See, the world's view of marriage is this little superficial thing. What we've been discovering in this time together is it goes deep. Your marriage is on purpose.
And I'm challenging you to look at that circle and go, Where are we? Like everybody here says, if I walked up to you out there in the little food line and said, Are you guys friends? Yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Where? How?
How deep? How tight is your circle? Where does the arrow strike? This is a great thing to discuss at some point. You can go have a conversation about it.
And just talk about how you could get that arrow. deeper. If four military guys Can sit there and tell me they would die for each other. I looked right at him and said, I'm assuming you have that same level of commitment to your marriage. And they just looked at me like, well, you're putting us on the spot.
Uh yeah, I am. But I want you to be confident. I like it. Good word.
So 10 is the best, or in this case, confidant's the best, chom's the weakest. What are ya? True call. You get to decide. You can just be chums.
Or you can go plus. Number next, valuing physical attraction.
Now, When Peter and I wrote this and put it in the book, we said, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, there are going to be people attacking us for this, and they have. Why would you put physical attraction in the book? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you exactly why. And let me tell you what I see in couples.
Over time, they kind of start going, eh. I've got them now. They're committed to me. Damn, good. I don't like that.
You know, you get one body, one. God gave you a body. And he tells you to take care of it. And one of the ways you give a gift to your spouse is just being the best you can be. Trust me, I'll never be 30 again.
I'm 65 this year. Jane said to me a while back. Why don't you grow your hair? I used to have really long curly hair. She said, Why don't you grow your hair like you used to?
I'm like, Yeah, right after I walk on water. I can't. I said to her a while back, babe, we don't kiss. As much as we did, you know, when we were first dating and married, we don't kiss like we used to. And listen to what she said to me: your breath don't smell like it used to.
So I threw some stuff in there. Even today, when I'm done speaking, I got it in my pocket right now. Got it out there, got it at the hotel. I keep my breath fresh. When you were dating, you didn't show up at their house.
You didn't do that. No, you didn't. And you know what really bothered me? I have a friend. I'll protect him a little bit, but his first name is Mark.
But he really ticked me off. He let himself go. Just let himself go. Terrible out of shape. Didn't even try.
Didn't even try to clean himself up. Just Let it go. till he got divorced. You know where he went right after he got divorced? I saw him there.
I'm at the gym working out with her. And I go up to him and I go, oh. I haven't seen you here in a while. I said, why are you here? I did.
I knew he just got divorced. I said, why are you here? Oh, I just wanted to get in a little better shape. And I said, why? I made him really mad.
He literally got mad at me. I said, why are you taking well? You know, it just gives me something to do. I said, no, why are you cleaning up, shaving areas you ain't shaved in a while? You got your hair looking nice, you're getting all trim again.
Why? And ultimately he said, Yeah, I want to be attractive. See if some other lady will find me attractive. And I said, exactly. Interestingly, in his story, he got remarried to his wife, and he came to me later and said, You made me so mad that day because you were so right.
I wish I would have done that in the first place. You'll never I'm not telling you to look a certain way. That's Hollywood crap. What I'm saying to you is, take the best care of what you got that you can. You've been given one body.
Take as good a care of as you can. Why? For your spouse. Stay as healthy as you can for as long as you can so they don't have to deal with themselves. It's a commitment.
But I want to give Jane the best meat I can give her as long as I can. Because I will fade away. It's called Father Time Wins. And he will win. But I'm going to do the best I can to keep us.
In the best shape we can, because I want us to enjoy our life together as much as we can. And I'm just saying, I'm not picking on anybody. I didn't look at you out there. I'm just saying to you: if you've kind of said, ah, that doesn't matter anymore, you're wrong. You're wrong.
Physical attraction matters no matter where you're at in life. And you want to do the best you can to take care of yourself as long as you can. And I'm just asking you, grade yourself. If 10's good and 1 stinks, have you let it go a little bit? And what could you do to get.
back in a little better position. Dan, I don't like this one. Good. That probably means this is the one you could work on.
Next one? Chasing emotional connectedness. Oh my goodness.
Some of you in this room, long. for emotional oneness so deep. But you have a spouse who kind of goes, that's not important to me. Again. Your marriage isn't about you.
It's about honoring the Lord, and if you have a spouse who you chose to marry, who has emotional needs that are higher than yours, you need to seek. To reach into those crevices and meet that need. It's going to require sacrifice on your part, but it's important, and I want to show you how the Lord used this in my life. I'm an emotional person, I was made that way. Jane has the bath brain, I have the emotional brain.
But in an area of our marriage, After we got married, I checked out emotionally. When we got married, Jane had several sisters who just weren't doing well, and one in particular, her name is Sandy. Sandy She just bothered me. It's Jane's sister. And I did not see at the time.
Oh, wait, when we get married, Jane's sister is actually my sister. I did not view her that way. She was Jane's sister, and she was a problem. And Jane would come to me saying, Sandy's Dylan, she had several children, she was not married. And I just said to Jane, Well, she's put herself in that spot.
It's her own problem. Let her deal with it.
Well, Dan, they don't have food right now.
Well, that makes sense. Let them figure it out. Pa sounds pastoral, doesn't it? And it got to a point where Jane wouldn't even come talk to me about it. She just had it inside going, She loved her sister.
Sandy. Younger sister. My brother, fell into some problems. Started having real issues in his life from poor decisions he made. My brother.
I started calling him. I started. Like saying, can I send you some money? How can I help? And one day I was sitting in the living room by myself going, Oh my goodness.
Sandy has the same issues, and I get frustrated when Jane brings that up. But now that it's my brother, I want to help him. Hmm. That doesn't sound like I'm one with her. It sounds like I'm one with me.
I gotta change that. And I said to James, we were sitting in the living room one day, and I said to her. You know, I want you to do me a favor. And she said, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, you know, I've been helping my brother.
I want you to call your sister Sandy and see if she needs anything. Jane, she was reading and put her book down, looked at me and said, You all right? You okay? I said, yeah. I said, I just, I just, I said, you've seen me.
I've been helping my brother a lot. She's like, I see. I said, I didn't want to do that for Sandy. I said, isn't that interesting? Because he's my brother, I want to do it.
I said, I'm not emotionally one with you and your family. I've always put you and your family. I'm with you, but not them. I said, we've got to change that.
So she called Sandy. I still remember you calling her. We were sitting in the living room. I could hear Sandy on the other phone. Jane said, Hey, Sandy, is Jane calling?
Oh, because Sandy loves Jane. Oh, Jane, it's so good to hear from you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And she said, Why are you calling? And Jane's like, Well, I'm sitting here with Dan, and he wanted me to call you and just see if you needed anything. And she went, Dan, who?
It was like, What? Because she knew I didn't like it. Sandy was not a follower of Christ. And I was the pastor she knew. And she was pushed away by me.
And the Lord began to do something in my heart toward old Sandy. Man, I started loving this girl. I just started loving Sandy like my own sister. And started saying, How can we help her? I'm just thinking about her.
The rest of the story, I'll get to it in a minute. Sandy passed away. With cancer, and so I'm going back and reliving just these last times we had with her, but.
So I would say to Sandy, Sandy, is there anything we need, et cetera, et cetera? And then she started saying to Jane, Hey, I've been going online and watching Dan preach. She ended up asking if she could pray to receive Jesus as her Savior. I don't love her more than Jane, but I loved her real close. She became my sister.
I never had a sister. She's a sweet lady, hard life. But she finished so good loving the Lord. Watching sermons all the time. Yeah.
So glad. that I became emotionally connected to her.
So thankful. that I got rid of my own stubborn spirit, and became emotionally one with Jane toward her family. I call Jane's family, my sister's now, her mom before she passed. I called her mom. I did it on purpose.
'Cause that's my family too. And there's somebody sitting in here going, we are not going there. I'm not gonna love his mama like you talking about. I get it. I get it.
But emotionally There's a oneness that's needed. And let me just say, you don't know what the result could be. Honestly, I believe today Sandy is in heaven right now. I believe it. And one of the reasons is because we United.
And Christ began to help her. And I'm just going to ask the question: who in your extended family? Could have a reshaped life if you changed your spirit toward them. I'm a pastor. I'm a follower of Christ.
If I can't figure out how to give my wife emotional and spiritual oneness toward her sister. What in the world am I doing in ministry? I would stand up here and preach sermons about doing that and then not go home and do it. What the world? And I'm asking you.
Some of you have a face flashing in front of your eyes right now. Yep. I want you to understand your spouse loves that person and you need to join them. I don't know what it looks like, but just let that get it down. Because frankly, going back to our Savior.
Yeah.
None of us deserve the kind of love he gives us. And he asked us to take that love. Especially within our family. and then beyond that to the world around us. Are you emotionally one?
The picture on the screen is a blender, it's where you take, you know, two fruits. And you blend them together. That's your marriage. How are you doing? Are you a 10 or are you a 1?
You get to pick. I'm just asking you. to take it up at night.
Well, what a great place to end this edition of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, featuring Dan Seaborn.
Well, as I've said, John, I really appreciate Dan's ability to mix humor with conviction. And this message was no exception. I'm not going to explain it, but I could be doing a bit better in certain areas. And let's just say he's giving me some things to kind of work on.
Well, me too, but I'm not giving details.
Well, I think both of us could benefit from reading Dan's book. It's called The Necessary Nine: How to Stay Happily Married for Life. And we only heard four of the nine principles in this show, so there's more for us to learn. And I'd encourage you to get a copy too. Get it from us here at Focus on the Family, where the proceeds go right back into ministry.
Help us help other marriages through our free counseling services and our Hope Restored Intensives, which have an over 80% success rate when we survey couples two years later. All of that and much more is made possible by. Your gifts to the ministry. And if you are a donor to focus, thank you. We appreciate it so much.
And if you haven't given, or it's been a little while, can I challenge you to consider donating today? Help us bring hope and joy to families that need it. When you make a donation of any amount, we'll send you a copy of Dan's book, The Necessary Nine. And regardless of whether you can give, we have a gift for you. We've added this presentation from Dan to the free audio collection called Nurturing the Heart of Your Spouse.
It features five hours of encouragement for your marriage. Yeah, it's a really great collection, and you can get your free access at our website. The link is in the episode notes. And when you're online with us, donate generously and request your copy of The Necessary Dine, the book by Dan Seaborn. Or give us a call.
Our number is 800, the letter A and the word family. 800-232-6459. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Take a moment, please, and leave a rating for us in your podcast app that helps spread the word about. These great shows, and be sure to share about this episode with a friend who might need some encouragement.
I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. 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. Uh
