Should We Stay Together?

This is the Truth Network. This is the Truth Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits.

Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Welcome to Kingdom Pursuits. Robbie is not with us this morning. He is recovering from a traffic accident, and I'll let him share that story hopefully next week with you. But one thing I am going to ask is.

That you would please put Robbie and Tammy in your prayers. We miss him this morning and just pray him for a quick recovery and get him back in the studio and back at church and back doing his everyday. Duties and responsibilities, but just continue to lift them up in prayer. And again, this is a call-in show. I want to give you that number: 866-348-7884.

This morning in the studio with me I have Wade Arnold. I've had him in here Couple months ago, maybe? Has it been two months? Maybe. Yeah.

I'm not sure. Maybe not, not quite two months, I don't think. But. When uh I got a call and needed to kind of cover for Robbie. I was like, uh-oh, I don't have much time.

So I was. Seeing let me had it. I had an A list and a B list, and Wade was on the A list, and I got a yes, I'll be here.

So I was grateful for that. And in the past hour, having Mark come in here from Poohiam's Barbecue and Hot Dogs and sit with me, and we talked a little bit about Easter, which was a good show. And I'm sure this is going to be a great show. I'm going to let Wade kind of introduce himself. I know you're.

uh uh uh coach and and uh uh An author and a psychologist, and I tell you what, you got a whole list of things, so I'm going to miss something.

So, I'm going to let you go ahead and introduce yourself. Yeah, great. It's great to be here, Jerry. Great to be with you. You know, hate for Robbie, the accident he's had, but surely we'll be praying for him.

Yes, so I call myself the marriage mentor for Christian Couples, and I coach couples. Primarily, I do see some individuals, and all across the country, even internationally, I have a few clients. And primarily, I focus on helping couples who are kind of stuck in a cycle of conflict figure out how to get out of that and to live really a marriage that is both deeply satisfying and God-honoring. That's the goal. All right.

And now we're going to talk mostly this morning about a new book you just wrote. But I'm also going to kind of just take a step back in your past book, Flourishing in Christian Marriage. Because I think that's still pretty relevant and and still a a powerful book that there's a segment that that certainly needs to get that off the shelf. Yes, for sure. Uh Flourishing in Christian Marriage, basically what it describes is how couples A lot of the conflict that couples have is not because either of bad, either are bad people.

In fact, most of the time that's the case.

Some people have bad motives, but most of the time it's that they're. what I call relationship blueprints are different. And those relationship blueprints, we come by them honestly. We don't develop them, they are developed in us by our family of origin. Two good families can be perfectly healthy and launch kids into adulthood well.

And They end up marrying each other with two different blueprints that are just misaligned. And so in that book, what I try to do is help people develop Flourishing marriages based on understanding their blueprints, their personal blueprints, their spouses' blueprints, and how they interact. And once we learn how to really hit our stride with understanding our own blueprints, how they interact with our spouses, that's when I'm going to say air quotes because I'm a Christian, I don't believe in magic, but I do say that's where the magic happens. People really learn how to flourish at that point. Yeah, and Really, what we're going to talk about is a new book.

And I'm just going to, well, let me just say one other thing. This is a call-in show, and I hope if you have a question, something Wade says, well, Just bring you you have something that you'd like to get a little bit little more information on or just a specific question, please call in. And also at some point I want to talk to you a little bit about how to get you to come in. I know you do events where you come in as a public speaker and hold events. We're going to talk a little bit about that and also your online coaching.

There's a lot of opportunities to get help. And I think we got a There's also a lot of need there. And I want to. The new book, Should We Stay Together? And I'm going to read the introduction, part of the introduction, because when I read this, it kind of stuck to me with, you know what, this really says, sums up a lot of stuff in where we should be as Christians.

The author promises, which the author is in front of me, Wade Arnold. Promises no agenda. to stay or to leave, but rather biblical wisdom. Trauma awareness. Practical discernment tools.

Readers are assured that they don't need to be strong. or decide immediately or pretend they're okay. I've seen Some of the stuff that's in this book that they're talking about, and I see the trauma that that causes, not just for the. Yeah. The two the the the husband and the wife, but just uh The ripple effect, I mean, throughout the family, immediate and extended.

But um Pretend that they're okay. God draws near to the wounded, and this book helps the readers breathe, think clearly, and seek His guidance without fear. Mm.

Okay. As a Christian I'm an elder at Pine Dale Christian Church, so I'm in leadership. There's a couple subjects that are really kind of sticky subjects in the church. And I think this book really Gets up to that uncomfortable line that, you know, where do you keep the, where's the biblical principles that you need to follow and stuff? And also a little bit later we're going to have a call in from Fonda Bryant with suicide prevention, and that's another one of the topics.

I think this morning I thought this is two topics that the church really struggles with.

So what gave you the courage and the desire to write this book? That's a great question. I think that. Last year, I did an audit of the couples who came to me. And And I realized that so many of them were coming after some type of betrayal in the marriage.

And it is it is a a hot topic. Uh it's a one that ca pastors don't know how to deal with. It does explode up. families, church families. And I have to say, I do, you know, there is some trepidation around writing this.

Even the title, Should We Stay Together, some people are going to read the title and go, well, wait, are you really excusing people for just getting out of marriages? Are you just trying to make it easy? And the answer is no. I absolutely love marriage, and I want to, my life mission is to decrease the percentage of marriages that happen. I mean, I would like to see that number go down because of what I do.

That's ambitious. I at least want to make it happen in my immediate circle, in my sphere of influence.

So the reason I did it was because so many couples Come to me and are hurting, and they're getting so much bad advice. Everybody's got an opinion. When a spouse gets betrayed, you have the spouse that is the betrayer has a very strong opinion. You go to a pastor and they've got a strong opinion. You go to your mother or your father, they've got an opinion.

You go to your brother and sister.

So you're getting all this information. and oftentimes, as the betrayed person, they want to protect you. And sometimes they'll say something like: there are certain pastors in certain parts of the church with a capital C that say, you should just stay together. It doesn't matter what else is happening. But we know biblically that that's not the case.

Jesus, Paul, and even in the Old Testament, they talk about reasons. Not that you must get to marry, divorced, I should say, but they give allowances for that. They permit it under certain circumstances. I think Even though one of the fears that I have in putting this book out the way that I have is that people will misunderstand my intention.

So, I want to say at the very beginning: I love marriage, and I want people to succeed in their marriages, and I want to help them do that. I also know that God is on the side of the oppressed. the vulnerable And God is not requiring us to stay in a dangerous situation.

So, in cases where there is adultery, where there is abandonment or abuse. I want to be able to give that person a voice. And that's what I did in the book. All right, if we're going to be back with Wade Arnold and hear a little bit more about the book, Should We Stay Together? And again, if it brings up a question, 866-348-7884.

Uh You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits. I'm Jerry Mathis, Ray's Body Shop, and Record Service. I'm filling in for Robbie this morning. And again, we're just lifting Robbie up in Robbie and Tammy in prayer.

Got Wade Arnold in the studio with me, and we're talking about his latest book, Should We Stay Together? Another question we just talked about: you know, what gave you the courage to write the book? Because we know, I mean, you as a minister, me and church leadership. that this is a subject that's really hard to To approach sometimes because you're trying to do what the biblical thing, but also. When people are hurting and they're in the middle of that, and I think most Christians, and I have heard, you know, the one thing, how many times the backdrop of their life, marriage is.

One thing you hear continuously, especially when you start struggling and there's hardships coming, and for whatever reason, is You know, as a Christian, you need to stay together. There's no room in a Christian life for divorce.

So what is your take on that?

Well Again, I'll preface everything that I say by I want people to have one way I talk about it is happy, healthy, holy marriages. That's really what I want at root. The fact is that we're sinners, and that shows up in our marriages. And if you look at the scripture Jesus certainly advocates that. For marriage, you see it in the Sermon on the Mount, you see it in Matthew 19, you see Paul talking about it in 1 Corinthians 7.

And even though God's desire through covenant marriage is that it's a man and a woman for life We know that because sin shows up in our marriages, that that can't always be the case.

Sometimes covenant is broken.

Now, I want to make a distinction too because some people do have just hard marriages. You know, some of us, Jerry, I don't know about you, but sometimes we're just hard-headed in our marriages, and it makes it difficult. But difficulty does not mean covenant-breaking. And so we need to make that distinction first. And we need to.

Kind of smooth the way in our marriages by learning how to communicate better and how to deal with conflict and regulate emotion and all those things that I teach people in my coaching. But there are times when there is covenant breaking, and that's really what this book is written to, is when there is a lack of loss of trust due to betrayal, infidelity. Trust is broken in a severe way where the covenant is broken. Then we need to think about what are those instances. And so Jesus named two in his teaching, which was.

Are adultery that in Matthew 5, and then, excuse me, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7, abandonment by an unbeliever, and then. This is also informed by my pastoral experience. If you look at Malachi, we all know that verse, Malachi 2:16, God hates divorce. What we we rip it out of context, though, and we weaponize it. And it says, God for I the Lord say, I hate divorce.

We forget the second p part, or we don't know it, and it says, And the person who covers his garment with evil. And therefore, do not deal treacherously. And in the context of that, Hebrew Jewish men were. divorcing their Jewish wives To marry foreign wives for social or economic benefit.

So they were just abandoning their marriages. And I think more broadly, in that case, that it's a type of abuse.

So, those are the three categories that I use. The other part of this is pastorally informed with abuse. I remember my very first. in in training, one of my very first clients I went into it was I would never recommend divorce. And then my one of my very first clients was a woman who was being abused by her husband.

who was being locked in her House every day. The only way that she was able to get out and come see me was one of those small windows in the bathroom. She was able to unlock that and sneak out and come and see me. And we were able to get her into a safe place. He was.

He was obviously technically legally kidnapping her by and entrapping her like that and abusing her. And as a pastor, like How could I possibly send that woman back into that marriage where she's in real harm? And and then You look at the scripture. I just I can't with a good conscience do that. You look at that passage from Malachi.

So those are the three things that I would say warrant the possibility of divorce. It doesn't mean that it's required. it's not commanded, it's permitted, and sometimes like in the case of abuse, I think it it could be the wise choice.

Now, here again, let me put that in the context of: I love marriage. I want people to be married and have happy, healthy, holy marriages. But sometimes, when safety is compromised, The wise choice is to Get to safety, and if that means reconciliation is not possible because of the hardness of heart of the betrayer. Then that person has to move in a different direction. And it breaks my heart.

Right? It's not what God's intention is. It's not what God's covenant is. But we have to realize that sometimes some people are so frankly dangerous. are hard-hearted that the covenant can't be restored.

And I do go into that too. Like, one of the things I think that's a struggle for pastors, and pastors can use this book in their work with their congregants. is what does it look like? How do we know that a person's heart is so hard that The probability of the relationship being restored is not very high, and that person needs to get to safety.

So I talk about that in the book, too. We maybe we have time to go into that some today, too. And you mentioned in the book betrayal, trauma. And You know, I think that's probably a term that's The church isn't a church term. Right, it's not.

Mm-hmm. And so kind of go a little bit into that. Yeah, so betrayal trauma happens, and this is what we're talking about here is when the person. That you pledged yourself to, that you made a covenant with, and they made a covenant with you. And the covenant is actually a triangle.

Malachi talks about God as a witness to that covenant, so He's a part of it.

So when you have that covenant triangle, And the person, so you pledge yourself to that person, and you're trusting yourself. That person is going to protect you, that they are a place of safety, that they are the one person in the world that's your ride or die, to use a common term today. And suddenly it they became the source of your greatest pain. That's what betrayal trauma is. And it happens at a neurological level.

So the betrayal trauma comes more from my psychology side. And it really is like. The symptoms are basically PTSD symptoms. I mean, that's what trauma is. And what really needs to happen, or what does happen, I should say, at a neurological level, is we have this.

Uh Oxytocin gets released, and we're bonded with that person. We have an attachment bond with them, and suddenly that bond is completely broken, and that person is no longer safe. They become dangerous. And w and neurologically, We don't know how to handle that. And so, what happens when I talk to betrayed spouses.

Is they say things like, I feel like I'm going crazy. I have this brain fog, and I can't even think straight. And I have to reassure them, no, that is an absolutely normal response at a neurological level. that you're going through. And we have to deal with that and kind of regulate all of that trauma stuff.

And if we, and that is important because you do not want to make a decision. about your marriage in that state. because we could decide. I gotta get out of this. When the marriage is salvageable, it was a one-time type of thing, maybe.

Again, I always err on the side of safety. And so we deal with the trauma. But you also don't want to stay in a marriage that could potentially be. dangerous for you.

So what I try to do and what I advocate in the book is let's slow everything down. And I say it multiple times in the book. You don't have to make a decision today. Get your physiology. Calmed.

Get your neurology. Back on even keel, and then the fog lifts in your brain, and you're able to make good decisions, not emotionally reactive decisions, but one that's grounded in clarity, one that's grounded in truth, one that's grounded in wise counsel from pastors, or elders, or good friends that don't have an agenda. Um but you need to be able to Make good decisions and you can't get clarity if your neurobiology is all out of whack. Yeah, and didn't I don't know when I sit there and hear you talk. I think Too many times churches don't And this isn't a knock, but I think we kind of lose that.

Because we just want to We don't dig deep enough to know that the hurt, and there is a time to step away. And also, you talk about the difference between. Forgiveness. Mm-hmm. And reconciliation.

And also, you know, it makes me think, you know, is. When I sit there and you put those together, how do we really know? I mean, is there a way of knowing? Is there some kind of signs that's going to point us in a direction where, you know what, you can sit there and you're talking to a couple and you realize. That may be This isn't this isn't true.

Asking for forgiveness. There's really no change. Exactly.

Well, let me talk about forgiveness and reconciliation. And then in the book, I outline a. Way of knowing. I call it a traffic light model, but you can apply that. And so forgiveness and reconciliation often get confused.

Forgiveness is really Between us and God, it's vertical. And so we can forgive someone with without any input from them. Right. It's it what we do when we forgive someone is we really release our desire for vengeance, that retaliation that's also talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. We entrust justice to God, that He will make it right.

We Let go of bitterness and resentment that might come along with that. That's really forgiveness. And the other person, we don't need their input for that. It's between us and God. And It doesn't require repentance from them either.

And so Yeah, we're gonna Stay, keep that, keep that thought because we're going to be coming right back. And also, again, if some of this interests you or you have a question, 866-348. 7884. And also, I just want to take a moment just to thank Nick on the other side of this glass for making it happen this morning. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com.

Uh Yeah. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits and I've got Wade Arnold in the studio with me and I think he was just fixing the I'm gonna pick up where you left off with repentance and and reconciliation and and you had just mentioned the Traffic signal, traffic light thing, because I think it's chapter 12. I kind of You're testing me, yes. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. So with let me finish the thought on forgiveness and reconciliation, because reconciliation, unlike forgiveness, it does require two people. It does require repentance of the person because you let's say that i wrong you you could forgive me but not trust me We see that Joseph with his brothers in the Old Testament. We see David and Saul. He forgave over and over again, had opportunities to kill Saul, but he never trusted him.

He never went back into his house. We see that with Jesus. He would forgive people constantly, but there were certain people that he would not entrust himself to. And then you look at what the traffic light model does is that it really gives us some. like a framework to hang certain things on.

So As a traffic light, there's green, yellow, red. Green says that there's a really good chance that what is happening in your relationship means that the relationship can be restored. Yellow is kind of Ambiguous and red says probably not.

So let me let me flesh that out a little bit with. If you have a green light situation, what's really happening is that the betray-ing partner, the person who committed the betrayal, is telling the full truth and you're not having to drag it out of them. They're volunteering that kind of information. They welcome accountability. They are uh s you can talk about soft hearted.

They have a willingness. Usually if a person is truly repentant, Not just sorry they got caught. If they're truly repentant, they're concerned about how much they hurt you. But if they're not repentant, Truly repentant, even though no matter how many tears they cry, and no matter how emotional they get. Their concern is about the impact on them.

losing their family, losing their reputation, financial impact, that sort of thing. But with a green light, there's genuine repentance, there's soft heartedness, there's a tolerance for the betrayed partners, The betrayed partner's process in healing, they're concerned about that. What did I do? I'm sorry that I hurt you, not just their own consequences. Let me go to the red light, because I think it's the sharpest contrast.

The red light. It's hard to pin down what the truth is. It keeps changing. There's frequently what I call a drip of truth. They'll tell a little truth and then they hold back, don't tell the whole truth.

And then another truth comes out. Maybe it's the truth, maybe it's not.

So it's a drip, and you never really feel like you're getting the whole story with them. And then frequently there's contempt toward the betrayed partner. Why aren't you over this? You say you're forgiving me. You should trust me again.

And we just talked about forgiveness and reconciliation. We can forgive. But that doesn't mean we're going to trust that person again, not immediately. Can it grow? Sure, it can.

But the Red light person. is very impatient or has no patience with that. And really, For a red light person, there's no genuine desire to repair their relationship. They frequently are very contemptuous toward their but the partner that they betrayed. Yellow light sits in between.

Sometimes they're going to exhibit soft-heartedness, other times they're going to be more, appear more hard-heartedness. But I will say that yellow lights never stay yellow. They're always going to turn green or they're always going to turn red.

So if you look at like a 60, 90 day trajectory. Where's it going? Do you see more hard-heartedness developing in their life, or do you see more soft-heartedness?

So there's some inconsistency there, but over time, You're going to see them move in one direction or the other. There is transparency there. Mm.

but they still are a little protected, the betraying partner. they'll have some inconsistency uh inconsistency and empathy. in yellow. But what again, what you want to see is What's the trajectory? Are they really moving toward me if I'm the betrayed partner?

Are they moving more away? Are they hard-hearted? Are they moving towards soft-heartedness? And I'm going to pause just a second because I don't want us to, at the end, get where I don't give it enough time for people to grab a pencil or a crayon or something to take some information down. Like I said, I'm going to pause.

We're going to get back into the book. Wade, I know you do online counseling or coaching. Coaching. And also, I know this from Pinedale Christian Church, also you speak and do seminars and stuff. And give me a little glimpse of what both of those are and then how could someone get in touch with you and stuff.

And, you know, I think especially this book, I know the first book is pretty powerful and stuff and just kind of is more of a, if I look at it, is more of a, you know, what this marriage is is going well and there's things we need to do to make sure we continue to do well. And this one is whenever, I tell you what. When you pick this one up, it may be because You're you're in the middle of a A storm. That's right. And both of them have completely different objectives, in my opinion.

Absolutely.

So tell me what would what does both of these look like if you're publicly speaking, going and doing the coaching online and stuff? And then how can we Audience, get in touch with you. Yeah, for sure.

So I'll start with the telephone number. You can get me at 336-496-2930. 336-496-2930. My website is drdrwadearnold.com.

So drwadarnold.com. And everything that you would need to know about how I work is there.

Now, I do coaching. It's pretty much all online. What I've found, there's no difference in outcomes as far as face-to-face.

Some people prefer face-to-face, but when COVID happened, I gave up my office and I can't imagine going back. It's so nice working at home. We homeschool, we're all there all together all day. And it's, and for us, that works.

Now, One of the things that I really am emphasizing this year is uh working with churches. doing retreats doing workshops. Pulpit supply when pastors are out and they want someone to come in and talk about marriage. I can talk about other subjects too. I have been a pastor.

I have my Master of Divinity and all that stuff. But What I really want to emphasize this year is doing the retreats. I can't uh maybe I would do a retreat on this particular book topic, but more it's on the Flourishing Marriage book, the first book. And you can get both books at Amazon. You can get them in Kindle and in paperback.

They are different, there are different purposes, and I'm developing. And what I call a marriage ecosystem.

So, how do you improve your marriage? You know, if it's not that you have a bad marriage, but you know. We could do better. Like, there's nothing wrong, but we're not flourishing. And that's why I titled that book, Flourishing in Christian Marriage.

And then What does happen when things go wrong in a marriage? There's infidelity or there's some kind of betrayal?

Well, that's the purpose of this book. My next writing projects I'm trying to decide. I think I want to rewrite my first book, just to things that I've learned or ways of expressing things. But then, two other book projects are: all right, let's say that you want to put your marriage back together afterward. This book, Should We Stay Together, is the first phase of that.

And then there's some very specific things for recovering marriages after betrayal that I want to write about, that I help couples with. And then let's say that couples can't. Reconcile. How do you recover after that, either as the betrayed partner or as the one that did the betraying? And I've worked with both.

And there are similarities in the recovery process. And there are differences that the betrayed partner needs and the betraying partner needs. And so that's in the future as far as writing projects go. Currently, I work with people in that in my coaching. But that's kind of the ecosystem that I'm working from.

And over time, the next few years, those writing projects will come out. But I do work with people now.

So, again, if you want to get in touch, it's 336-496-2930 or drwaidarnold.com. Yeah, I th you know, and I think this has been And I don't kind of get a chuckle out of this when I thought about it, when I saw the. Kind of ran over, looked over, sort of skimmed over what the book's about and stuff. And the first thing I came to mind was if I'm sitting in that class and you say, pick up the book at the back of the room, I'm thinking, Do I want to pick up that book at the back of the room? Everybody's going to think I'm in trouble because I think that's sort of the stigma that we have inside the church and also just in the culture in general and stuff.

We'll be right back. We're going to dive back into the book. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits. Linda Sibio with Wade Arnold, author of Should We Stay Together.

Wade, I know that You just, as we went off air, mentioned that you will be Wednesday, this coming Wednesday night at Pinedale Christian Church in the main sanctuary. You'll be speaking. What are you going to be speaking on? This is a fun one. We're doing the One Another's on Wednesday nights in the main sanctuary, and I have Love One Another.

And so my first thought for a title would be Everything You Know About Love is Wrong. But I decided against that one. It's maybe too provocative. But I just settled on lies Christians believe about love. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to compare what we see, how our culture talks about love, and what agape is in the New Testament.

So I'd love for people to come out. That's at 7 o'clock at Pinedale Christian Church across from Walmart on 150. 3395 Peters Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Yep, if you're in the area, please come out. You're free on Wednesday night.

Come out and hear wait and be able to. And we talked a little bit about the fact that you do do events and seminars and retreats and stuff. Um I hear nothing but great things about when you're in front of an audience and and how it's Powerful, impactful, and changes lives and points people to Jesus Christ. And that's one thing we are called to do as Christians. As pastors and Christian leaders, is to make sure everything we do points people to Jesus Christ.

Absolutely.

Well, back to the book. I'm going to, because I know that I'm going to be running low on time, about to be ready to run out, so I want to touch on a couple. Things to make sure we kind of Hit on before we close out. I'm sure there's people in the audience sitting here today that are listening to us that aren't calling in because of, I think, the stigma of it, the shame. Am I going to be judged?

That are in a in a Situation now that that they don't feel safe, that they feel like they're being abused and just look for a way. What's my next step? What do I need to do? How do I protect myself and also do what God would want me to do? Right, that's a great question.

And it It is such a a profound question. that we have to grapple with. And I think that in the church With a capital C. We do not do a good job with that. We use that Malachi verse.

Almost like a hammer, sometimes. God hates divorce, so figure out how to make it work. But there are sometimes that it is genuinely unsafe to be in that scenario.

So I think the first thing that you have to do if you are in a situation that is unsafe is admit. This is unsafe. Like, if there's physical abuse happening, you need to contact someone that can help you, whether that's your. a good pastor who will listen. whether that is a mental health professional.

Licensed counselor, licensed marriage and family therapist, licensed social worker. And they can help you get into a safe situation. And there are networks around town that can help you get out of a situation that is truly physically unsafe. I will also say that emotional abuse is also real. If you're being demeaned, if you are being put down, if you are In our culture now, a very popular term is gaslighting, and that's a very real thing.

If you're doubting your reality, like if everything gets turned around on you and the reason your marriage is struggling is all your fault and the other person, your spouse, can't take any responsibility for their contribution, that's a serious issue. And so we need to take it seriously.

So number one. For yourself, recognize, yeah, this is real and it's happening. Number two, get some help that will help you make decisions from someone who can help you make good decisions. And really Again, Some marriages are more difficult than others. There's for whatever reason the personalities don't match very well.

But that doesn't mean the covenant has been broken. It just means that there's a skill deficit. And there may be a goodwill deficit as well, but we can work on those. When it comes to Covenant breaking damage though. We as a church Need to take that seriously.

We need to listen. We don't need to. Have someone sitting across from us in our offices or in the sanctuary or wherever we meet with someone and say, You just need to figure it out because God hates divorce. We need to listen in the church first. We need to hear what's going on with the person because the best thing for that person.

may not be to stay in it.

well, is not to stay in an unsafe scenario. And I probably will take some heat for that from this writing this book. But If that's the heat I take, I have a clear conscience about that. I've sat across from too many people who are being abused. Who either emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritual manipulation, even.

That I cannot with a clear conscience, and I'll stand before God and answer for it, and I'm okay with that because I do have a clear conscience. My desire to help that person to stand with God on the side of the oppressed and the vulnerable is greater than my fear of people misinterpreting what I'm saying in this book. I want to have compassion for those people. I want to have compassion. Because God came, Jesus came, that we might have life and have it abundantly.

He did not come. to have us Be oppressed, suppressed. He came to give us life. All right, real quick. What's the one thing you want everybody to know before we go off the air?

We're winding down. God is on the side of your marriage, He wants. for your marriage to succeed no matter where it is. But if you're in trouble, get clarity and make wise decisions.

Alright. You want to get information on Wade Arnold? Look up just Wade Arnold. It'll put you there and get you information. Wednesday, this coming Wednesday night, Pinedale Christian Church, Wade will be on the platform speaking.

Come and join us. Tomorrow morning. Be in church somewhere to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Have a great Easter weekend, and thank you for listening.