Till Death Do Us Part- 98

Shard of glass, the sand is falling down too fast. Oh, you know, we shouldn't just let it pass because once it's gone, it's never coming back. It's too good to me.

Tell me what makes this.

Believe me, Andrea. Believe me, I'm not the only one that you.

The cure with Amy Kabul life can bring many difficult situations domestic violence, addictions, poverty and even sexual abuse by your loved ones. Welcome, Amy Karbo and The Cure.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Q Radio Show.

I'm your host, Amy Cavo, with my amazing partner for a while. Amazing. Thank you. Our show is live on your radio, also live on our app, The Cure on any smartphone and our Web site.

God is a cure, Larcom, as well as in social media. We are broadcasting live from Miami through satellite available on 35 stations among eleven states and soon after this show on any podcast player. And the next Sunday on series XM Channel 131 The Family Channel. This show deals with suffering the tenacity of the human spirit, the will to survive, and the courage to keep moving forward despite any obstacle. With the help of God who enables us to help each other. We provide testimonials to let people know that we are not alone. As well as experts and inspirational speakers who can help in this show. The testimony started with me having been a survivor of child abuse well into young adulthood. I do believe we all suffer somehow, but with the help of God, we can be a source of healing for each other. For me, God, my own. The only cure. But other forms of healing are presented as well to service everyone. Life is challenging, but there's always hope when someone cares. At least God does. The song we played earlier was A Hundred Ways by Jackson Wang. Some of us look forward to outlasting past the seven year itch, hoping that's our biggest challenge. Hard to believe that after 20 years of marriage, there can still be huge hurdles to tackle, especially when the sand is falling down so fast, it's difficult to turn around. It's when someone wants to be loved. The same love begets one, makes their loved ones stay, and the enemy knows a hundred ways to leave your lover. Collaterally makes you feel as if you will not wait. And then at longer, he knows once it's gone, it's never coming back. If we keep believing we're all that is needed when it's right, when in reality it's God, the only one that they need.

Today we have a special guest, Dr. Mark Johnson. Dr Mark Johnson is a medical doctor, a teacher, a mentor and an innovator, dedicating his time on researching faith and our relationship to God and each other. This research led Dr Johnson to author the combinat series with Book One What is a Common Book to the Continent of Marriage? Dr Johnson, you are now Alive and the Cure. Welcome to The Cure.

Thank you. Great to be here. Appreciate the invitation.

Doctor, let's just dove right in. How can some people have successful marriages while others fail?

You know, Amy, that's a very difficult question. There's many reasons for one or one outcome or another. But the thing that has really drawn the attention over the last several decades is that God has a plan for marriage. You know, we tend to think of marriage as something that we just get into and figure it out as we go. When Jesus was asked about marriage. Remember what he said? Jesus said in the beginning it was. And then he began to explain something about what God originally intended. So one thing that struck me about that is if we really want to understand marriage and if we want to deal with the issues as marriage, perhaps our best starting place is to go back and look at God's original intent for marriage. Now, this led into something else that I had been studying for a while, which is the covenant relationships. In 1983, I did a Bible study by K. Arthur on Covenant and she referred to a book that H played Trumbull on multiple occasions. Troubled published the book called The Blood Covenant in 1885. And this is still by far the best book I've ever seen on what a covenant actually is. Now, if you go back and look at what a covenant actually is, that certainly answers many, many, many questions about how to how to conduct and how to build one of these relationships incessantly.

Now, on the other hand, you know, every. OK. So tell us what the covenant. How does it work? I don't know. The covenant of marriage as the covenant gets. Yes.

OK, well, first is that there are three covenants that Veter identity exchanged. We tend to think of the Covenant as a contract between two people. But that isn't at all what a covenant actually is. It's very different than it is in a covenant. Two people or a person in God. In the case of the New Covenant Exchange, their identity is literally in the case of a blood covenant, which Trumbull's study did, which has been a part of human almost every culture through history. So we called the blood covenant that in marriage, in the New Covenant are all the same type of relationship. Now, that relationship is characterized by four things. One is an exchange of identities. The identity of one party goes into the other and remains kind of a blood bath in it. Yes, it is. And it is an exchange in an in a blood covenant. It was believed that the blood actually contained your identity. Therefore, when you took this into yourself, you you took it to yourself. A part of the nature of the being of the other person.

Is that why Bobby gets my physical sentence?

Oddly, oddly, that is the case. My wife and I have been amused at a number of points, but things that we shared that we didn't used to share, you know, and Holly is from Texas and I began to be obsessed with all these in Texas.

And Holly began to like Chris. Charlie had never quite been up from Alabama. So, yeah, it's a big dent. But what happens is our identity literally goes into each other. Now, if a new element comes into our identity, the being that we were shifts into something different. Now, in the new covenant that is described in very graphic language, there's a new birth, a new creature. There's death of the old birth of the new know. We live we live a new life because we are new now in marriage. Is it as graphically described as it just says that we we are one flesh. We become one flesh. But in that in the word what that word is the same word for one that is used to say God is one. Okay. That one is not a singularity. That one is one or two or more things that are joined by a common identity and a common nature, which in this case would be the Trinity. So marriage is designed to reflect the Trinity, were designed to actually represent as a married couple, the Trinity.

Tell me, Bobby and God, that unity.

And yet, as you're in covenant, it was very covenant with God. You literally army different. So that is absolutely correct.

And once if that is the case, then we have a totally change your life. If if my wife is in the very core of my being, if she is literally a. Part of me first is no contract to do that. There's nothing that you can do to make that happen. That's that's a gift of God. That is something God does on a spiritual level for us as we get married and says what God has joined together, let men that separate. So there is a reality that is just as real as gravity is, just as real as the chair you're sitting in. But you can't really see it or feel it or tested it in the physical realm. So that's why I think a lot of people missed this. But we have loves if we are the same. And first, we're told to love. The other is we love ourselves, that God makes that easy for us by literally making the other person an extension of myself. So what I do for my wife, I literally am doing for myself and vice versa.

So if we get that. OK, go ahead.

So everybody is starting that way.

What that that is would happen as we enter the permanent all of that happens immediately as we enter the permanent and then joining of identity. And that change of nature and identity is the reason for everything else we do now. We're called on to do many things in a marriage, in the scriptures. And if we look at this again as a contract, this is just to do it without really a lot of good reason that we can see. And frankly, a lot of these things were polling that these seem to be against our best interests. It even run cross-breed to our nature.

Well, you know what? It really helps when you ask God to get in it after making many mistakes on your own and you say, God, I can't do this anymore. You choose my husband. I asked for a huge sign, but that's a different show when I describe my book. And God did give me that sign miraculously.

So this one was picked by God. Thank God. Wow. And I guess that's me. And to make sure we married three times. We will continue with Dr. Mark Johnson about how to build a better relationship and create a good life. Stay with us.

866 33 church goers. Take 634 thrid.

We'll be right back with Amy Kabal and The Cure.

He's talking to he gets believes it comes back with distance. Maybe I should be to leave the damn he started in me. Makes me think. Go on. So is my.

And now we will continue with Amy Cabral and the kids.

Welcome back to The Cure. This is Amy Kayapo. Thanks for tuning in.

Are you changing the pronunciation of your name, though? Like Michelle. She says Cabo. OK. Remember that you can listen to the radio show Life Draw Up The Cure with Amy Cabo or later as a podcast to a song that just played was The Other Girl by Kelsey Ballerini.

And healthy jealousy is detrimental to a loving relationship and especially a marriage. Sometimes we blame ourselves. We were in conflict with our hearts and our temptations. We want to be the diamond, not the pearl. The center of their universe and everything in the world. We don't want to be the fool where the red dress with the scarlet letter on our chest. Do we really want that on our conscience? That makes us angry. As do you for past experience to matter. And wants with God. Somehow muster through you.

We're talking to Dr. Mark Johnson, who's helping us understand how some marriages succeed while others fail. After the break. Before the break, we were talking about a beautiful, lovely covenant marriage is and how two people can actually be intertwined into one. And thought even in physical symptoms. I know this. Now, that's the beautiful side of it. Then how is it that marriages go wrong?

Well, Amy, that really comes down to one question. That question is, who are we? And let me explain that. When we enter a marriage ourselves, change who we are literally changes. And we're now joined with a kind of identity and nature. But to another creature, to our wife or our husbands. Now, what I found early in my marriage was something that might I might be called on to do for the sake of what I would call them, to love my wife as I love myself. OK, so here's the thing to do to love my wife. And some of those things are easy. But at points, there's a stopping point. Now, what is that stopping point for work? What I've found is I really looked at that was if my sense of my self interest was too violated by what I was called on to do for love, which would win. And we could go either way. But usually myself Vitas one out because the reason we get into marriage in the first place is to make our lives better. Right. But then when I really thought of that covenant and what had happened, my self has changed. So what about my self interests? Has my true self interest actually changed? Because what drives virtually every behavior that we see, whether it's the best or the worst of behaviors, is we really think in the moment. This is my best move. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I'm going to completely screw up my life. That is the every move that we make. We think we're doing the right thing for ourselves. Go back to even the garden. You know, she didn't eat the fruit to be defiant. The guys, she ate the fruit to become a God. Know, she thought she was engaging in an upgrade by this behavior.

Now, when you take away the pride.

Well, while it's elements I always see, you know, I thought this good thing was going to happen. And instead, my life blew completely apart. OK. So the key then is understanding what our true self interest is, because Satan is at every point trying to convince us that it's something other than what it is. It's an affair. It's drugs. It's my job. It's making more money and ignoring my family.

It's whatever it is, it's, you know, their land. It's because there's no there's no because you know it.

And the Christian community sometimes doesn't help this conception because they make it sound like it's about sacrifice. It's like I'm self lefse. I completely devote myself to the other person. But that's not really what a covenant is either. Covenant is a complete equality of the importance of the two of the needs of both of these life purpose of both. It is completely equal relationship. There were supposed to be completely all in two and we're supposed to be completely loving. Now, if we understand that our true best interests, my best life over the next number of decades is going to arise from loving my wife as deeply as I can now and then, even growing and transforming so that I can love my wife more and more over time. What happened? I'm now becoming a more loving person. I am becoming the person that I became in nature as this new creature. I'm now developing a life that matches this and being fully joined with a life. We know that this is an ideal meal. Sounds like one of those things that you hear. You're supposed to do this for visas. And we're like, yeah, right.

But it's not reality.

Well, what was right? It is not at the moment. But when I have spent the last 35 years in mentoring people and in teaching and we have seven children in marriage.

Watching this close range in many, many lives, including my own. There really is a series of steps that we go through. God has a plan, a marriage. A covenant is not just the tie that binds two together. The Covenant is a plan to take us from where we start. Step by step by step by step. You become the person that God intended us to be in the beginning. By creating these relationships and joining us. Sir, this is a real offer that God made. But we. You have to understand what the plan looks like. And we have to understand that this is going to require commitment and many things on our.

The main thing is we have but, you know, understand the plan.

This is my take. You know, how I became the person that God intended me to be. Because pickpocket never leaves me or alone. And he's very clever. That's why he's pickpocket. You have no idea. He's working on you. And, you know, so the only way that I was able to become the person that God wanted me to be. That makes my husband much happier. It was by praying every day. You know, there's not a day. I don't go praying. It's not like the magic wagon. All of a sudden I know how to be. No, you need help. You need to ask God for help. He'll show you. Your guide, you. He'll make things happen. In fact, my husband's praying with me now.

So it's working really well. OK.

Absolutely. And you know that there's another element that we often overlooked in Romans 12. It says, do not be conformed to this world, which is the thing. That's exactly the pitfall that we're describing that we latch on to instead be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

The problem is that Senate does that does not follow by, like, you know. Podcast on how you do that. But if you look back through the spiritual lives of those thousands of Christians that developed a very deep relationship with God in a very deep and vibrant marriage, that path has been laid out for us. You know how we are transformed to notice that we all share in our Christian lives. We think God does it all. We just sit. We're passive recipients.

We have to do our part. God wants to do. We have to do our part.

I tell you, God helps only those who help themselves, not those who sit around and expects for it to happen. We'll return with the cure, like every Saturday at 1:00 p.m.. Stay with us. We would love to hear from you.

Tell us what you think about your marriage. One eight six six thirty four throat one eight eight six six thirty four throat.

We'll be right back with Amy Kabal and the Q.

Amy, come and a cure, they show, deals with suffering, the tenacity of the human experience and the courage to keep moving forward. With the help of God, I want people to know that I was forced into my own volition because I didn't think I had a choice. I want people to know there's choices for Amy.

My heart is breaking. I want you to know that I love you and I thank God for you.

Amy Kabul and the Cure every Saturday at 1:00 Eastern on the Truth before.

Gapen, McCurley, back just before you leave. To Sam.

Now, we will continue with a recap of thank you.

Welcome back and thanks for tuning in.

This is Amy, Cavium and all. Sholes are available as a video podcast to just look for that cure with Amy Cavo. And that's usually 90s right now.

The song that is played with Savage Love by Josh 685 and Jason to lend. Hello. Yes. After seven years as an orphan single mother, I've been so disappointed. I thought I would be a single mother until met forever, until I met Barbie. Many times it was savage love, but it would be the last time someone broke my heart. If I woke up without him, I wouldn't know what to do. Sometimes I can be an angel or a savage, but that's our love. It's okay. Love it. It can only help us grow as long as we have God. We're talking to Dr. Mark Johnson, who is helping us learn from other people. And God, Dr. Johnson, you've explained to us, you know how special marriage is, but the reality is that people will be challenged.

The enemy loves to divide. That's his favorite thing. And people will be challenged. And I'll tell you what. There'll be times where you get frustrated or we get angry or the same person that you're married to seems to have changed or you don't know that person anymore. And you can pray and pray and pray and you feel frustrated because things are not changing. And in those heat of the moments, you'd feel so powerful just to walk away. It's very unlikely that people can think with a clear mind when there's so many emotions involved. And once people are calm, they're able to talk it out. And I think that's what's helped us with our marriage. And we've always practiced forgiveness and unconditional love that neither the two are possible without God.

So are we are we doing like some kind of a marriage therapy or love on radio or that they're just looking to help us with that?

I want to help the people who are struggling. I mean, the people who are having a good marriage, they're okay.

Good, good. Good. Well, yeah. And Amy, if I might put that in context.

I was learning about covenant, much of what have been applying and watching work in my current marriage. I was married once before and none of that worked. There was another individual involved who was ultimately diagnosed with a personality disorder. Toward the end of our marriage. That was an extremely emotionally abusive situation. For 16 years. Wow. I did not believe that that crazy is meets God's criteria for divorce. And there were children involved. So I stayed in that relationship and tried to approach it is constructive with kids. During that part of my life, my question was, okay, this isn't working at all. This is horrific. So how does this actually work? And then at a point, this person opted to end the marriage. So at that point, my question is, how do I never, ever get into something like this again?

You ask God Nagati. Well, we have a phone line.

And it was so helpful to see what God's plan actually looks like. What is this supposed to look like? Now, once once I really had a much better grasp on that and God did a lot of work in my heart. This is a very long story and it's really beyond this program. But then I was I think God led my wife and I together now. We spent a couple plus decades building the very relationship that I saw was possible in God. But I had to know what that looked like. And frankly, I had to be desperate enough to make the necessary changes in myself and to learn what that process looked like, the spiritual growth and the character transformation that is needed really to be a really good marriage partner.

It's huge for all of us. Nobody walks into a marriage having this thing together at all. And in fact, marriage, I believe, is designed by God as a vehicle to take us from where? We'll start first. He completely transforms who we are as we enter the marriage, but we don't realize that then it's learning how to authentically live out the being and the relationship that we entered to begin with. It's about moving toward authenticity. What I've found is I looked at what a covenant is, what I signed up to enter the covenant of marriage, what is required in a covenant to be faithful to the covenant historically and what God says to do to love another in the Scriptures. That's the same lips when you look at the vows, the historic vows that are associated with weddings. That is literally a list enumerating all the things worth to do and to be. Now, some of those things are simple choices. I'll be nicer. I'll be better. I'll be more honest. I'll be more on time. I'll be whatever I need to be.

I'll be humble. A lot of those days, I'll put my pride aside. I don't need to win. That was Stouffer's for me. I'll be coming out to how you feel is more important, regardless of how I see it does kind of thing.

Is it Amy? That is so true. Because what when Holly really understood that we are in each other. If you don't understand that, if you're in a contract marriage, you don't make a contract with yourself. You make a contract with somebody else.

Right. Because it doesn't matter if you're right, if the other person sees it a different way and their feelings are hurt. You have to work with that person regardless of how you see it. If you love that person. Yes. Can I ask that?

Have a loving husband. That it's very challenging for people. I mean, it takes two people have to be a learn accountability and responsibility and ownership and do away with the excuses and the denial and the blame.

I mean, if we could just go taking notes a lot, you know, and it helps to be humble and it helps to pray because, you know, you learn to love unconditionally. You learn to ignore the bad stuff and sometimes put what you will on the side. And I love it. I love it when I put myself aside and others first. Not that I want to put myself aside, but it makes me feel good.

Right. You know, in a marriage, it's about the two of us realizing that my wife is. She nails part of myself. So her interests are just as important to me as my own. Her needs are just as important to me as my own. And it's not about me being right or her being right, which is kind of the typical initial discussions that you have and what to make the first year of marriage.

So interesting.

You know, if it's about getting it right instead of being right, it makes all the difference if we're collaborating, if we're building by consensus or collaboration. Now, again, there's a learning curve to learn how to do that. And I didn't start there. But now when we have an argument, it looks like a board meeting. We're we're laying out reasons for one thing or another. Very often we'll switch sides. I'll I'll take her initial side. She'll take mine and we'll usually end up with something out. We've finished discussing all the factors and all the motivations and all the goals and all the all the things that feed into this decision will often end up with something altogether different than we started. Either one of us sort of.

And I believe that when I do it.

I bet your calm when you do it, because I'll tell you what, pickpocket may use your spouse to do something that frustrates you. And then you'll try to. And you want to stay there and say things angry and say things you don't mean and feel bad about yourself and feel further away from God cause you are mean. Oh, no, no, thank you. I walk away.

I'm still taking notes. Good. Good. Thank you. You know, Amy, it's like people will pay to watch you.

Determined opponents go at each other in an MDMA fighters.

Yeah. Whatever it's like if you are really going at each other.

You know, that's interesting. Nobody is going to pay to watch somebody sit in a chair and mutilate themselves. Right. I mean, that's.

That's right. Yeah.

Even more deranged to watch them or pay to watch it. So in a marriage, if two people are really going at each other, that's what they're doing. They're literally attacking themselves as they attack the other person. Once you get that, it's a game changer. Yeah. You know, it really changed my heart as I was working through issues to realize the person I'm 42 is literally a part of me.

And that's, you know, and that's the person you love the most. If you want your best friend, then who do you have? Can you don't want to attack them. You don't want to attack the hand that feeds you. Oh, dear God. He picked this marriage. I don't want to screw it up.

You know what? I found it. Yeah.

We can look at different little aspects here or there about marriage. We can listen better. We can be nicer. We can be more empathetic. Or, you know, we can. We can look at particulars. But what I found to be most helpful. The really big move.

Big theme play in my life. Well, I realize who I am and who my wife is. And you know what? It all starts with us first. Once we realize what we need to fix in ourselves, we can love others. We would love to hear from you. We love you. Take eight six. Text thirty five. Church.

We'll be right back with Amy Kabal and the Q. Christmas to die.

I'd never I'll try. In the end, I got a mind. He got the crazy Cai's. Is mine. I think it's a hell of a ride.

I don't want to make it. I just wanted to fight. Twenty seven feet. Bonnie and Clyde wouldn't see the point of living on it. One of us died. Yeah, you got that kind of style, Larry. Body trying to rip off Whitesell dress Sunday West. You take them, make off silk on a body, pull it down and watch it slip off. Every Kessman she did, she would try to cut like crazy. But I love her. I can never run from her hitting no rubber. I never would. No one touch each other. MACV so stubborn.

The biggest thing she knows when I'm not a fool, I think it's just says. Dallas was down there, c.p down for a nap and never got accepted. We will continue with Amy Campbell.

Thank you again and thanks for coming in. I'm Amy Carville and this is The King.

Later, the show will be available as a podcast, Search for the Cure. And please subscribe. And if you like it, send us a review.

The song they just played with him and I buy Jeezy and housey B, cross our hearts and hope to die if we ever lie to our loved ones who he promised to be true. When love is real, in the end it's him and you. The can try to divide us and pickpocket doesn't want us to make it. It's the crazy kind of love sometimes. And we drive each other mad. It gets tense and it can be intense. A part of love comes with pain and suffering. We just have to feeling from God's legs.

We're talking to Dr. Mark Jansing, helping us dissect our relationships.

They say he's a surgeon, so he'll he'll be happy with the word hoping to sew everything back together.

There you are.

But we do need to do a little internal work before we do that. Yeah. Let's go back. Course, you ask me a question earlier about what is covered. And let me go back to that. The four principal characteristics of this thing, because that's that's a God that really is going to help us. First, it's about the exchange of identity, the change of nature and the bond that's formed. The next thing is about the exchange of why that happened. As a result, our lives are shared. Often the wife's last name changes, property becomes jointly owned. There are so many things. And in fact, everything is supposed to become communal within the Covenant. That's that is what a covenant uses, a communal life. The next thing is that in that communal life would hold on for one or the other as we would love ourselves. And there are a lot of ways that that's done. We all come into a relationship with an idea of what love is. Mainly it's about our feelings and how we act when we're feeling the love and how much we enjoy somebody acting like that for us, when they're feeling the love. But what God does he do is take our guidance system for how we treat each other from our love. You want to feel like loving you. But when I don't from that point to loving, consistently, loving, deeply and loving well across the spectrum of life in God's covenant is a plan, not just the relationship, but a plan that teaches us how to do that and grows us and transforms us into a person who can actually do that if we understand the plan that's in the covenant of marriage. Yeah. Spin the book. And in fact, they've got a three book series that takes that process from one to the other step by step, so we can really understand what God is trying to do and all of our lives. The next thing is the priority that our relationship has in our lives. And boy, in our culture, this was challenged because our way in our covenant are supposed to be other than our relationship.

Doug, sorry to interrupt you. We have a listener. Let let's hear from from Alyssa. Real quick. I have actually two listeners. Let's hear Billy Billy from Charlotte. What is your comment? How can we help your low life?

The reason why marriages fail is because mostly they the persons involved don't marry their complement their seven motivational gifts. The servant needs an administrator. The giver needs an administrator. The administrator needs one person with both the servants and the giving couple compliments. Then there's the mercy, which is the prophet or Harold. And yet the person with exhortation or a learner needs a teacher. If those governments aren't part of the marriages or expectations is doomed to fail.

Okay, that's actually a good point, I think. What do you think, Amy? Yeah, we complement each other. Oh, Dr. Johnson.

I think I would respond that true love is not found. It's Bill.

You know, the experience to be deeply in love is a great start. But we can't just think that that should continue ongoing and it never does. Those feelings never continue. So we are called on to do it. Covenant is two now. Bill, that loving feeling ongoing. My wife and I right now have deeper and stronger feelings for ourselves than we even did. We were head over heels in love in the first two months of our relationship with the first year of our relationship.

I think actually we all are saying we.

Does that mean a lot more mature?

Yeah. I mean, we better learn it.

We've learned this is to subtract the things that pull us apart and build on the things that draw us together.

That's actually very smart. While, Doctor, you're a very wise man has an ax.

It's through. I agree. Thank you, Billy.

I'll tell you what brings us together, because it's very difficult and nothing works. If if you can convince your spouse you have to have God in your relationship, there's no other way about it. If you can convince your spouse to read the Bible and pray with you, it gets easier. I mean, not that things change circumstances to less to say, man.

Do they get smarter, more responsible, more understanding?

Well, I feel like you're talking about me or something. You handle it better.

I'll tell you why people become their environments. You may need your lovely, beautiful, wonderful, humble person and they become successful and offer secondary. Different person hopes and people can become their environment unless they pray. Pride doesn't win when you have got in the way.

Amy, you're talking about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's exactly the core of God's plan.

And the funny thing is, when you begin looking at that, you know how to do that. There's several very powerful ways that we can choose to engage in on a regular basis. You're describing some of those and they're extremely powerful. And that is the answer. You know, my heart bleeds for people because it's how so we really relate to this of being in a relationship. And one person is really trying to pursue one course and the other person isn't doing anything to build a relationship.

You know, there are takers, there are user abusers.

You know, that they don't realize it as they don't want to accept that they're the one that's wrong. They're in denial or it just seems like they don't care anymore.

That's right. They don't see that. And what I was told early on in Christian life is if I don't like my wife, you know, five years after I'm married, it's my fault. Like, I'm somehow responsible for who she is or who she becomes. And that is very, very bad, counsel, because even if everyone is free to chart the course of their own life, Jesus loves people perfectly. Absolutely. Perfectly, yes. Many people listen to what Jesus said and turned around and walked off. And Jesus did not chase them. Jesus does not invade our lives and make us feel one thing or another.

So how could a husband or wife take responsibility for transforming their mate into somebody is going to be one thing or another. We can't you know, again, this is where prayer comes in. God and we know people's hearts. But he doesn't always do the big thing.

The encouragement that I would have is if we're faithful and convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that the incredible mirrors that I have to my wife, Polly, has much to do with the fact that I was faithful and devoted to God through throughout that first situation. And, you know, I refrain from doing many things I could have done out of my frustration. And God delivered me in that situation.

Dr. Johnson, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we have very, very few minutes left. And I wanted just to to put something here. If you tell our listeners for one minute or less simple tasks that they can do to improve their relationship, if they're struggling, if they're struggling, you know, honestly, I would hate to self promote, but I would, as you recommend, reading The Covenant America.

That's good. That's good.

Working right now on on a on a study guide for couples on marriage to walk you through these things step by step because give one held your hand.

Come on. You can do it. Give us one helpful hand.

OK. Realize who you're dealing with. You know, as you look into the eyes when it says, who are you? Whose eyes do you look into when you look across the breakfast table?

When you see the far end of the love and when you see the 14, the other person. Are you looking at yourself here? Because probably you're guilty of the same thing. Oh, that's happened many times. And he wants to write the book. Managed by guys.

It's the end of the show again, we just have a few minutes left. So thank you, Dr. Johnson, for being on the cure. It's very helpful to hear your scientific approach and more information. And Dr. Johnson and his book about Cumberlands can be found.

Mark Johnson, M.D., M.D., author, dot com. That's right. Right, Doctor. Dr. Johnson.

That is correct. It will be on the Web site and it will also be on the website. On our website.

Perfect. So we will finish the prayer, as we always do. And it's a prayer for honesty in marriage. Honesty is very important. And you can't get very far without honesty. I agree.

Father, God, we come before you today to ask you to help us do everything with absolute honesty in our marriage. Sanctify us by your truth. Your word is truth. John 1717. Help us to never lie to one another. Help us to come clean. If we mess up or make a mistake that can affect our marriage, no matter how bad we may feel or embarrassed, we maybe give us the ability to complete to be completely transparent with one another, regardless of how we feel. We thank you for the discernment to know your truth and that conviction to call on the name of Jesus. Is there anything that we have been untruthful about in the past? Please help us to share it with one another and give us with them to work through it.

We thank you for helping us, to be honest, as we choose to submit to your spirit. In Jesus name. We pray. Man. And stop lying to each other. You have given up your old way of life with the tab, it's each of you now as a new person, you're becoming more and more like your creator, and you will understand him better. Colossians three nine through 10. Thank you to our audio producer, Jasper, for being with us today and playing our songs and to Robbie Gilmore of Kingdome Pursuit and the Kristin Carr guy for his love and dedication. His shows are truly awesome.

This means being here with Amy Cabot. For more information, Amy's book, Love is the answer.

Got it. Care to listen to the podcast of previous shows? Visit. God is the care doc.