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Life is messy.
Things get busy.
Our focus can get on things that just don’t matter.
But…
We get to start over.
We can take a breath.
We can reach to see God’s perspective.
What does He think about this situation?
What matters to Him most in this difficulty?
I don’t think we can see His perspective unless we’re well-rested.
Unless we “come to Me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.”
It’s a discipline to come to Him…to receive His rest.
It’s a discipline to not fill your schedule, mind space, sad moments, loneliness, or even the spots of boredom with things that crowd out our possibility to ponder God’s perspective on it.
Because God has a totally different perspective on our lives than we do.
We all get off-base.
Loving our spouses the way they receive love isn’t natural.
We’re seeking to do something supernatural when we love our spouses well.
So if you are noticing you’re falling on your face while trying to do that, or you’ve gotten off track in loving them well…
God wants you to rest, refocus and get back out there — He is rooting for you.
All is not lost, He is refining you on the path and in the ways He chooses.
Today’s podcast goes into how to rest, how I rest, how I refocus, and how I suggest you “start over” in your marriage and all other areas of your life.
Blessings,
Belah
PS – If you haven’t looked yet, there are really fantastic free resources at delightyourmarriage.com/free!
transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hey there, and welcome. This is belah. And today I want to talk about starting over, which is something that we all have to do over and over again, whether it’s in our marriage and our intimacy, in just different seasons of life. So, yeah, hopefully this is super encouraging for you and gives you just a pep in your step today to hold your head up high that things can get better, regardless of where you are today. And before we dive in, I have got a ton of free resources for you at delight your marriage.com/free. And I encourage you to check those out, because you may have missed some really great insights that you can get there. So for example, for women, there’s things about confidence and intimacy, there’s things about what to do practically in different intimacy activities. And for husbands, it’s what’s blocking her libido, what might you be missing. And so you can go to delight your marriage.com/free to, to download those and get on my list. And you can get updates every so often about what’s going on and to encourage you and your marriage. All right, let’s go ahead and dive in.
1:49
So sometimes, I think, in this work that I repeat myself over and over again, and then I realized recently that when I find someone particularly interesting, I actually don’t mind them repeating themselves on a similar point, because it helps me to more deeply understand what they are teaching. And so that’s my hope, in today’s conversation that maybe you’ve heard me say things like this before. But hopefully what it’ll do is give you a fresh perspective, a fresh insight, something that and it causes you to think about things a little differently than you have in the past. So let’s go ahead and talk about starting over. You may be at a spot where you feel like you have messed up, where there has been so much going on in your life. And your mind is just rattled, you are all over the place. Maybe it just feels so messy right now, and you can’t seem to get your head above water. And I have felt that way. And there are times that I feel that way. And God is with you. And God is rooting for you. He wants you to get back on your feet. And you may have high standards for yourself compared to others. And I’ve got to say bravo to you. You do not have to lower your standards because others aren’t living or aspiring to life that you are aspiring to. It’s okay to have high standards for yourself and for your life. Now, it’s not okay to have high standards for others, because they get to live their journey they get to live the path that they feel is helpful and good for them and makes them feel like they’re pursuing God in their way. So sometimes, I think about John the Baptist and I feel like when I met my best, John the Baptist really, really inspires me because he didn’t have a life of luxury. And you know, even Jesus talks about what did you go out in the desert to see A reed shaken by the wind? A man in fine clothing? No. You went out there to see somebody who was strong and wasn’t going to bend to any one he was so deeply devoted, and nothing was gonna stand in his way for pursuing God’s will for his life and drawing people to repentance. Nothing was gonna stand in his way. So when I get, you know, off track, when I feel like you know, I’m my routines, my habits, the things that I know, helped me to be fully committed to Jesus and able to serve The people that are assigned to me or in my assignment, then I just have to take it, take a rest, take a step back. It sounds maybe strange, but when you’re feeling overwhelmed, and when you’re feeling like you can’t keep your head above water, the answer is not to work harder. It’s to rest. It’s to get out of whatever’s going on. And rest. Rest with Jesus. Let him renew you. The Bible says, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. You’ve got to come to Him, you’ve got to discipline yourself to come to Jesus. For rest. It’s not easy. But it is a discipline that’s required for you to get back on track. For me to get back on track, we can’t do this life on our own strength we’re not supposed to. And when we start doing that, that’s when we get off. I know that for myself over and over again, when I start doing this on my own strength. That’s when I get off track.
6:36
That’s when I’m not living what I’m teaching you to do. So I have to have time built into my life every week. That requires me to get back on track. You probably know, my rest days are Saturdays, and my son’s birthday was the other day. So it was kind of a, you know, funky, Saturday, really great Saturday, but it was just not our typical rest day. And so I knew it was taxing me on Sunday, and then the rest of the days, because that’s the day that I rest. What do you do on rest days? Because I think a lot of people are, you know, they’re like, Well, you know, I could do just nothing, but I feel lazy after that I don’t feel rested. And when somebody says nothing, they really mean, I don’t know, they binge watched seasons of whatever on Netflix or some other place. And I get that every now and then if that’s, you know, that’s gonna kind of wake you awake and, you know, shake you awake and say, you know, this wasn’t worth it. Sometimes we need days like that, I guess. But what I suggest on rest days is to stop the work. You know, really, literally every week, you can delete your email from your phone every week, and then come Monday morning, you can turn it back on. And just, you’re not working. It doesn’t matter how great your work is, it doesn’t matter how spiritual your work is that you never know who might need you right now. They don’t, they just don’t, they can rely on you know, if you’re the fill in Jesus for them. That’s just not, it’s not good. None of us should be 100% relying on anyone unless you’re, you know, a kid or lying on your parents like that. That’s okay. But pretty soon they’re going to have that independence where their reliance should be on Jesus. And you get to be a portion of their life. But the point I’m trying to say is you are not Jesus, you get to be rested and filled up. And then on the other days, you can love them like Jesus loves them. But if you are so taxed and so exhausted, you may be going through the motions of loving them, but your heart is not there. And that’s not the way Jesus asks us to love. We have to be wholehearted in the way we love others. And so when you stop work, that’s the first most important thing. But the second most important thing is to delight. Delight in this incredible life God has given you and truthfully I don’t care what circumstances you’re in. God is still giving you an incredible life. There are still reasons to rejoice if Paul could do it when he was in chains. In, you know, a horrible prison. It says Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. And even if your gratefulness is less about your material or outward circumstances, and it’s more about just the fact that God is with you, the God of the universe loves you, and He delights in you. Oh my gosh,
10:22
it’s true. You know, one thing I think is beautiful. I don’t remember where I heard this. But
10:29
you know, when you get really happy, for whatever reason, and you just want to share it with someone. I think social media has caused people to usually share what’s what they’re happy with online. But then sometimes people don’t respond, or they don’t like it, or it doesn’t feel like there’s enough likes or doesn’t feel like there’s enough comments, or it doesn’t feel like somebody you really care about is responding in a good way. But what I find is really cool is Jesus is a safe space, and a good space for your affection. Jesus is a good, the right space, if you will, the best space for your affection when somebody doesn’t know Jesus. It’s like this. Where do you put your affection? Like, God, not only does God want that affection, but when you are walking down the street and you’re feeling good? You, you get to just reach up toward heaven in your heart and just say, thank you. This is so great, thank you. And it really doesn’t have to be you just, you know, earned a million dollars or your you just got a raise, or you just got I don’t know, whatever feels like it would make you happy. It could just be my gosh, it’s a beautiful day, or, wow, my cardan breakdown or my son just said he loves me. Oh, god, thank you. You’re amazing. Thank you for this life. Thank you for what you’re doing. He’s a safe space for your affection. If your spouse is not safe for your affection, give it to Jesus. Give it to Jesus. It’s okay. He cares. He wants your affection. He wants to hear how good your life is. No need to muffle that. Don’t muzzle your positivity. Because Oh, other people are suffering or Oh, my life isn’t perfect, or oh, I’m still feeling this or that. You get to be positive, you get to have the bright side of life. Always on your mind. That’s okay. That’s okay. You get to choose looking at the good. You know, we’re in a cultural norm of depression, or sadness, I think. And it’s not that it’s ungodly to experience that Not at all. But my aim is to help you. In those moments in those seasons, I’ve been through them myself. I want to just give you some insights on what can you do in the midst. And yeah, medication I support that medication may be a really good part of your healing. God heals through everything. He through his heals through medication, he heals through a person’s friendship, he heals through, you know, laying on of hands and prayer. Like he heals through all of these things. So it’s not to lessen God’s power by taking something like medication.
14:00
But when you’re delighting in him, don’t let any reason dissuade you from delight. There’s no reason not to delight on your resume, it will fill you up. The next thing is to be okay with being bored. Be okay with being bored. It’s only in the last I don’t know, 20 years that cell phones have been so smart that we never get bored. Like we can always check something always pull something up. We can always doesn’t matter where we are. We can always not be bored. But it’s okay to be bored. What I think that does is it it clears your mind to just be present like Oh, I’m so bored. So I finally have to focus on what’s really going on around me. I have to actually look at the wall. I have to actually hear what’s going on around me that’s that’s okay. You don’t have to constantly be productive. Productivity is not righteousness. Those are not the same thing. They’re just not. I love the work ethic, I think it’s great to be somebody who works hard. I really do. I think I’m a hard worker, but it is not required all the time, you have to have rest just like an Olympian. They’re gonna just like sprinters, right, they run really hard, really fast. And then they rest. That’s absolutely the way God set this thing up. During the daytime, you’re awake during the nighttime, you’re sleeping, rest is a part of life, we have to do it. We will burn out. And if you’re a minister in some way, some capacity or you’re a parent, or you’re really any function in the world, that God wants us to love others, we we just have to get filled up by Jesus. Otherwise, we’re running on fumes. And I see that all the time with my stuff. Because it’s so emotionally intensive. You know, cuz I am walking with people in some of the hardest. I mean, the hardest relationship with her life a lot of most of the time, right? I have to, I have to otherwise my words are empty. And my emotion isn’t real. It’s maybe contrived. If I’m not rested. I can tell Oh, no, I’m running on fumes. And so for me, it’s more than just a Saturday, I have to also take Wednesday mornings, to just reset recalibrate. reorients and my Saturdays are with my family. Wednesday’s are not Wednesdays, you know, I have a handful of hours that I just get to spend with God. And it really, really, really helps me to just okay, where are we? Let’s get God’s perspective on my life. Let’s zoom way, way way out. I think I mentioned Francis Chan the other day. One thing I remember him saying was, if you think about the sand on the seashore, and there’s some scriptures that that go along with this imagery, but anyway, the sand on the seashore and your one little tiny pebble and you start zooming out from that now all of a sudden, there’s all these, you know, pebbles sand on the seashore, and then you zoom out a little bit more. And you see the rocks on that sea, shore, the the beach, if you will, and then you zoom out, now you
17:53
see the trees of the tops of the trees and you see the water and you see the mountains even a little bit, and you zoom out now you see the tops of the mountains, and you see the clouds and you can’t really see that beach anymore, and then you zoom out even further. And now you see all the clouds and you can’t even see the mountains anymore. And you you start to see the world has a has a rounded edge, and you see the sun and you see the moon and you zoom out even further. And now you’re the the earth is just a quarter a size of a quarter and you see the sun and you see the other planets and you zoom out even more and all of a sudden now you can see all these stars and you see ultimately the Milky Way which has got all the planets and all the stars and and then you see these other galaxies and you zoom out even more now the galaxies that you saw there were so big and bright now they’re just a size of a dime they’re so little any you zoom out more now the galaxies are all over the place and you see and then think about That’s the God we serve. That’s the God we serve. And if we can just get his perspective on our life. If we can just get his perspective on on our life. He is so much bigger. He is so much bigger than we would ever know. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts His ways are higher than our ways. Yes we are this tiny pebble we are tiny. We are so tiny. It says the the glory of man is like grass. Like I was looking at the you know our little park is got some I don’t even know what you call it. Just these little flowers the flowers of the field. Yeah. So the glory Man is just like the flowers of the field here today gone tomorrow, like they’re beautiful, these little, these little flowers that are all over the place. But they that’s it like, and they’re all over the place like there’s, I couldn’t even imagine counting them. Hundreds of 1000s if not millions, they’re everywhere. That’s the glory of man, that’s the very best that man has to offer is it’s just here today gone tomorrow, just a little thing that no one really notices. Like, when we get God’s perspective on our life, our tiny little worries, become much easier to bear. We get to rest, because we’re not God. God is God he is holding the world in his hand, he has got this figured out. We don’t have to, we just get to rest we get to just relax and who our daddy is, I was watching this little kids the other day. And they’re just these cute little, I don’t know, toddlers bouncing around, waddling around, you know, barely able to walk. And then there’s some other kids that are chasing after the butterflies and they’re dancing around. And they’re cute clothes, and they’re just so relaxed, knowing that they’re loved. And they can be totally present where they are, I just can’t imagine it would be so sad to see one of those kids just pouting in worry, and anxiety and fear about I don’t know his shirt not being the right color or, you know, not being able to get a butterfly like his friend. It would just be so sad. And I would think that’s a tiny little problem. Why would you care, just just enjoy yourself. And I think about that with God, like he’s probably like, come on, it’s tiny. Just enjoy yourself, I’m here, you get so many good things to be aware of. And just because you don’t have the life of someone else, you get to still enjoy your life, you still get to enjoy what you have. So use your rest day as a day for delights. Use it for as an excuse to do those things that you never have time for quote unquote, like oil pastels, or charcoal or knitting, or cartwheels in the grass, those things that you just don’t have time for. Okay? Now you clear today, every week that you have time for those trivialities, because those are the things maybe it’s for valleys, not sure how to say that word. But those are the things that are going to make you happy and laugh and playful and fun. So then your life is fueled with that sort of thing.
22:56
Your life is fueled with that type of attitude. I think in my programs, a lot of people are surprised at why playfulness is such an important part of their marriage. It’s vital. It’s so important. It attracts your spouse to you. When you are playful, when you are happy. When you enjoy your life. And that can come from Jesus, it doesn’t have to come from you know, watching some crude stand up comedy routine. It can be just playful, fun. Outside, you know, kids, a lot of times people think that kids are, you know, the bane of sexual intimacy. They’ll you know, when you’re when suddenly when you have kids all the SEC stops. It does not have to be in fact, your kids can be the impetus for playfulness. And playfulness is attractive. Because playfulness shows that it’s safe. Right? Think about it. It’s hard to be playful when it’s not safe, emotionally between you and your spouse. It takes some courage to be playful. But that comes from Jesus delighting in his world. Being grateful I talk about writing your 10 gratitudes every single morning and unrest days for me that is a great start to my rest day. Sometimes I’ll get up to 3040 50 of them because they just it just makes me so happy to realize, wow, God has given so much God has given so much and you know the truth of the matter when you look at scripture is you are given more it says to the one who has not what he has will be taken away but the one who has more will be given I think that’s more of the posture of our heart. That’s, he says that right around the parable of the talents. You know, when the guy that was given three talents, I think it was three talents, then he invested it and doubled what he was given. And God said, good and faithful servant. And then the one that was given to he invested it, he worked hard and figured out what to do and, and got two more. So he also doubled his, and the one who only got one. He basically didn’t trust God. And he said, You know what, I’m just gonna bury mine in the ground. And when the master came back, he was given the talent. He gave the talent back and said, You know, I knew you to be a tough and lazy, almost like a tyrant, he was accusing the master of being a tyrant and the and the master who’s representative of God in the story. He says, you know, take what he has been given and give it to the one who has like the the one who now has six, take what He’s even been given. And because the one who has not even what he has, will be taken. And it’s one of those, if we don’t recognize what we have, it will be taken away. But when we recognize what we have, more will be given. I think this is vital for our faith and our, our, you know, it in the Bible, it says, Your faith has healed you. Your faith has made you well. So when we have faith, it’s fueled by our focus on what God has already done. The good things he’s done, the good things he’s doing, the ways he has done miracles in our lives. And so, when you are starting over rest, and God be grateful, in God, have a rest day, let yourself recalibrate, and rest. And sit and be bored, and be present. And make new goals and ask God to help you like Lord, I just feel a mess right now. I’m not doing the stuff that makes me excited about intimacy, I’m not doing the stuff that makes my kids feel loved. I’m not doing the stuff that, you know, I know my wife needs to feel relaxed and peace and fulfilled in our marriage. Okay,
27:51
how do we change that, God give me the grace helped me. And you can then just write your goals. You know, God’s gonna help you with those things. I’m a big checks, checklist person. So if I see a checkmark on something that I’m working on, oh, gosh, that motivates me. So I can write a list of the things that are hard for me, I don’t really write a list of the things that are easy for me. I’m kind of like, you know, those are, I’m done. Like, those are. I don’t have to worry about those. Those are, those are gonna happen. But the things that are hard for me, I make sure I write down because they’re not yet in my just normal part of life routines. And so then, if I check those things off every night, or middle of the day, or whenever I get to that checklist, I feel great. Like, okay, I knew this is what I was going to do. And now I’m doing it. So starting over rest, ask God to give you the vision and perspective of your life that he has of you. Ask him what his opinion is of you and what you’re doing in this life. Write down some goals and make a checklist. How is this gonna play out day by day? How are you going to put this into your habits? Some of the guys I work with they it’s so cool. When I’m thinking of in particular, he’s got on his checklist. How was he on each of the fruits of the Spirit? And he rates himself zero to 10. So love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. All of those. He writes himself on and you know, he’s got kids and it’s just so cool to see that You know, we can be inspired by each other’s discipline, and each other’s due diligence if they can do it, I can do it. You know, we are supposed to be disciples of Christ. And again, when I think about John the Baptist, I’m like, Whoa, talk about somebody who went against the grain. He was in this world, he wasn’t of it. He was not indulging. So do you have any Bible characters that really inspire you? I would say, be really aware of that. Because that very well may be pointing you towards the way God wants you to be. There are two Bible characters that really, really inspire me. And I think that’s a God thing. I think he inspires me through these two lives, because it helps me to see what I see as God’s will for me. So one of them is John the Baptist, really feeling like, I’m not supposed to live the life that most people live, because I’m supposed to do a different mission than those that I see. And then the other one that inspires me so much is Joseph, how he suffered and suffered and suffered and endured and persisted. And then God elevated him so that he could give to others. I think that if Joseph didn’t go through everything that he went through, he wouldn’t be able to apportion the wealth God entrusted to him the right way. So that really inspires me, especially in the difficult times that it’s just like, God, God did this on purpose. Because we needed to learn in a certain way. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to be faithful. When he does elevate us in whatever capacity that looks like. So whatever, person in the Bible that inspires you, like latch onto that? And with the idea of starting over my gosh, I mean, think about Paul, he literally would kill Christians now. I don’t know if that’s your history. If it is, there is hope for you. But if it’s anything less than that, my gosh. Killing people, Christians, and then becoming a Jesus follower yourself. Wow. If Paul can have faith like that, that our sins are forgiven, our our mistakes are wiped clean. Why can’t you?
32:48
Why can’t I it’s a it’s a it’s a function of our faith. So if you for men, if you have listened to me, and you realize you have had a poor or wrong perspective on your wife, it’s been very me centered. It’s been very immature and selfish. Okay, great. Thank God, you learned that but don’t, don’t do anything. That’s gonna, like don’t succumb to the guilt. Don’t succumb to the guilt. Take responsibility, own it, thank God, he’s opened your eyes and apologized for it. Don’t brush it under the rug rug. Just apologized for it. It’s going to heal your marriage in ways that you would be surprised and she might not just run to you and hug you in the moment but it’s going to sink in. It’s going to be important and impactful. So don’t ignore that step. And for wise if you have ignored intimacy for years, or days or months or whatever. That’s another thing, own it and apologize. It’s kind of like apologies are if your foot has got glass in it. Okay, fine, the skin will probably heal and there’s you know, it’ll be but but you won’t be able to step on that foot until the glass is actually removed you you really got to get the glass out. And that’s what apology does. It allows real healing. Now certainly we can forgive people without somebody apologizing. God gives us that grace and that ability but why? Why not just apologize. It’s, you know, you’re running through it’s excruciating in the moment. It feels like death. Right? But I think Doyle said, this metaphor, it’s like running through a waterfall on the other side of the waterfall. It’s, it’s nice. It’s not it’s not that hard. It’s, you know, on the other side, it’s like, oh, I wasn’t that bad. Even though it was scary, just 20 seconds before you can start over. You can start again, even if God revealed these things to you, and you just fell off the wagon. Okay, start again. Today is the day that you can ask God for His grace for his rest for his help. And pick yourself up and start this thing over. You can do this he is rooting for you. You have a crowd of witnesses rooting for you. You can’t necessarily see them all but they are rooting for you. I am rooting for you. You can start over today. Let’s pray. Father, I lift up this person listening God. You know their struggle, you know where they messed up. You know where they fallen. But God today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to turn again to you, to let you Jesus wash their feet. Yes, maybe their life is committed to you but they walked in the dirt and they messed up again. But Jesus, you are there ready to wash their feet again, to show them your love. Once again. God I asked for a grace to rest with you, God that these precious ones listening Lord, this precious one listening, Father that you would show them how much you want to walk with them. You want to put their life in perspective. You want to help them see that the tiny little things are tiny little things. You want them to rest and delight and be your hands and feet. And that requires the rest it requires filled up with you. Give us that grace. We love you. In Jesus name. Amen. Awesome. Thank you for listening. Some encouragement about making love. If your wife do it, you can do it. Get back on drag. The more you make love the more you want love. The more you make love the more you want to make love. That’s the right thing to say. And for Husbands love your wife out of the abundance of your love for Jesus. You are supposed to love your wife, the way that Christ loves the church. fill yourself up with resting with Jesus and and love her.
38:14
Alright, thank you so much for joining. You can go to delight your marriage.com/free and check out the resources to encourage you in your intimacy and in your pursuit of Jesus. All right, I love you and we’ll talk next week.