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Don’t Waste the Great Gift of Influence
(Formerly titled: Don’t Waste Your Impact)

It’s easy to underestimate just how much weight your words, actions, and attitudes carry—especially in your marriage.

But the truth is, your spouse is the person you impact most in this life. And that impact can either build up or break down. It can draw them closer to Jesus—or push them further away.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you are influencing every day. The real question is: how are you using that influence?

In today’s episode, we’re exploring what Scripture and research say about the power of marriage, how your smallest habits shape your legacy, and why taking your influence seriously could be one of the most important decisions you make—not just for your spouse, but for eternity.

Why Your Marriage Holds the Greatest Influence in Your Life

Research from the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale confirms it: five of the top ten most stressful life events are marriage-related. Death of a spouse. Divorce. Separation. Reconciliation. Even getting married. All of these events shape us more than we realize—impacting not only our emotions but our physical health.

That’s why your role in your marriage is far from trivial. It’s your greatest mission field. Beyond your spouse, your children are next in line for your influence. Their spiritual formation, character, and even understanding of Jesus may start with how they see you live.

Influence Starts with the Smallest Seeds

We often think influence must be grand—but it’s the consistent, daily seeds that grow lasting fruit.

Whether it’s trying to put stubborn littles to bed while keeping a joyful attitude (“count it all joy when you face trials”), or sharing a genuine compliment with your spouse that communicates admiration or safety—these small acts build a legacy.

The greatest impact comes through simple faithfulness: planting seeds of respect, encouragement, and love, again and again.

Want to Be Effective? Influence with Soft Eyes and a Gentle Tone

Influence is not control. It’s not demanding. And it’s certainly not harsh.

If your heart is full of conviction, but your tone is sharp, your spouse may never hear your heart. Instead, they’ll hear rejection, judgment, and intensity. That shuts hearts down.

Instead, remember this:

• Soft Eyes

• Gentle Tone

• Slow Pace

No, it’s not an acronym yet—but it’s a powerful practice. If it matters to you, slow down. Look at them with kindness. Speak with a spirit of gentleness. Because your delivery may determine whether your words are received—or rejected.

Faith Isn’t Meant to Stay Silent—So Stop Hiding It

Somewhere along the way, many of us have absorbed the idea that faith is a purely private matter. But Scripture doesn’t support that.

Paul talks openly about his prayers, his tears, his awe at God’s love. You don’t need to boast—but you do need to be real. Share how you follow Jesus. Let your spouse and your kids see that He’s not just a Sunday idea.

He’s your daily King.

Character First. Ministry Second.

The Bible is clear: if you can’t manage your own household, how can you lead in the church? (1 Tim. 3, Titus 1)

Your first ministry is your spouse. Your first testimony is how you treat them when no one is watching. Your first assignment is to steward the influence God has entrusted to you—in your tone, your time, and your tenderness.

Don’t Waste the Great Gift of Influence

If you’ve ever caused your spouse to spend days mulling over a harsh word, you’ve influenced—for harm. That matters. God has given you the ability to heal and build up—or wound and tear down.

We won’t be perfect. But we must take our influence seriously.

Let your words be seasoned with grace. Let your habits point to Jesus. Let your home be a place where His love is felt—because of you.

Because when we stand before God, how we used our influence in marriage will matter. And your spouse’s eternity may just be a little brighter because of your faithfulness.

Final Thoughts

Friend, your influence is real. And it’s powerful. You don’t have to be perfect to make a lasting impact—you just need to be faithful with the moments in front of you.

One seed of kindness.

One soft-eyed response.

One patient, Spirit-led pause.

These small choices shape hearts, build trust, and reflect the love of Jesus. So take heart. God has entrusted you with influence, not by accident, but for a purpose. And as you lean into Him and love your spouse with intention, you are planting seeds that can grow into something beautiful—something eternal.

 

Love,

The Delight Your Marriage Team

PS – Are you ready to take the next step in influencing your marriage for the better? Our Clarity Advisors are ready to talk with you! Schedule a free Clarity Call at delightym.com/cc.

PPS – Wish your church had a program like this? It can! We are launching our Church Training program this Fall and are still accepting churches to participate in the pilot program. Learn more at Delight Your Marriage Church Training.

PPPS – Here is quote from a recent graduate:
“There was a fair amount of discouragement, which carried over in my professional life and ministry involvements. I would not have considered leaving my wife, but hopelessness was making me accept the fact that we would continue to become more and more estranged until one or both of us died…[Now,] I KNOW that as intimacy grows between a husband and his wife, both are energized to do the work of the Kingdom, both shine brighter wherever they are. I have begun to feel it and see it happen!…Our communication is so much better: we have not had an argument since the beginning of the program. I am sharing more of myself now – my wife will not die without knowing her husband of all these years!”

 

Transcript:

Belah Rose (00:00)
Hi there, I hope you’re doing well. This is Bella Rose and I have got to tell you, I am likely right in the very middle of recording a church training. ⁓ I don’t know if it’s exactly happening right now while you’re listening, but we are in the process of doing that. For years, people have been asking us to put our content from our flagship course for men or our flagship course for women. They’ve wanted…

put it in the churches. And for a long time, it’s just, when do I have the time to record something for churches? I’m coaching and creating podcasts and leading the team and just all the really amazing things that God does here. When do we have time for this? But it really became clear that this is now the season to push into this. And it’s been exciting how God has just opened up so many doors and so many people have donated money because they’re just like, I want this in the churches.

been incredible, really, really. So if you’re one of those, thank you. Point is, for you dear listener, that these next several weeks we’re going to be sharing episodes that maybe were already pre-recorded, which is still really great content for you, just to feel like this is really helpful. But also it allows me to take a step back and really have my focus on these church training series. So if you want to understand more about

what we’re working on, go to delightyourmarriage.com slash church. And we’ve got some promo videos there. You can kind of just get your feet wet. We are really excited because we’re launching in January, 2026. We’ve got our pilot churches going in the fall, but we’ve got the actual launch 2026. We’d love to have your church involved. So you can check out all the information at delightyourmarriage.com slash church. All right, enjoy today’s episode. God bless you.

Welcome to the Delight Your Marriage podcast. You’re joining me, Bella Rose, as I dive deep into the beauty, power, and truths about intimacy. Learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. Delight your marriage.

Hi there and welcome. This is Bella and I’m thrilled you’re joining me. I am marriage intimacy trainer and coach, author, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to speak into your life. The way I really come at marriage, the purpose, the reason I do this work is because I deeply believe that the greatest impact you can have in any person’s life

in your entire existence, from when you’re born to when you die, the greatest impact you can have is in your spouse, your intimate partner, and after that, your children. It’s just true. ⁓ We’re gonna get into that today.

But the other question is, in what ways do you influence? How do you influence? And how should you? Sometimes we’re completely unaware of how we are influencing. And so I wanna give you some ideas, advice, insights on how to influence in the way you actually want to be influencing. Because a lot of times people are influencing

and they’re completely unaware of the amount of influence they have. both of those are my point today. Before we dive in, ⁓ we’d love to give you something called the marital health assessment. And it is a tool to show where you are today in terms of marital health in the four most important areas we believe at Delight Your Marriage, to just give you a sense of where you are now and where you need to grow, what’s possible.

so, you know, I don’t want you to get obsessed the score that’s ultimately generated, but what it does is, just kind of have a starting place because the strategy to get from a level four average and these four important areas to a level five is going to be different than somebody who’s a seven to an eight. So it’s just important to kind of find out where you are at this moment. And so if you’d like that information, that insight, and then some

some follow-up resources, free resources that we’ll send to your email. You can go to delightyourmarriage.com slash health. All right, let’s get into this conversation around influence in your marriage and towards your spouse. Let’s get into it.

All right, so why do I think that you can influence the most your spouse? There’s actually this ⁓ study, it’s called the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing Rahe correctly, but you can actually go and look this up. It was first developed in 1967 and this stress inventory attributes points to

different life stressors. So according to the scale, the more points you accumulate over a year, the more likely you are to experience health issues. So that’s why they put together this stress scale to say, if you’ve had these events happen, ⁓ it will even cause health issues, ⁓ physical ailments, because it’s so significant. And guess what? The most significant stress

as issues of a person’s life that a person could possibly experience. Number one, death of a spouse. That’s massive influence, right? A spouse dying. Number two, divorce. Another aspect of not having a spouse anymore. Number three, marital separation. We’ve got the most stressful events a person can go through in their life.

and the top three of 10 are about marriage. So it’s really clear to me and hopefully to you by now that you are most influenced by your marriage partner. But guess what? goes down to number seven is marriage. That’s the other most stressful event. It’s generally thought of as a…

happy occasion, but it can also be stressful. It might require a great deal of adjustment, especially if you don’t cohabitate with your partner beforehand, which as Christians, we don’t believe that’s okay. And then number nine, marital ⁓ reconciliation. So as with marriage, marital reconciliation is usually thought of as a positive thing. And this might be so, but reconciling with your spouse after a separation can still require a lot of adjustment and thus be stressful. Okay, so out of 10, this scale that has been used for many years,

that psychologists rely upon, number nine, number seven, number three, number two, number one of 10, that’s five out of 10 and half of the most stressful things that could ever happen to you is related to an intimate partner slash spouse.

So please know that if you’re spending some time thinking about marriage with me to get today or in general, like that’s incredibly valuable use of your time because this is what impacts you most. ⁓ One of these has to do with being laid off or fired. One of these has to do with retirement, death of a close family member, being incarcerated. Yeah, that would be very stressful. And that’s the list.

Personal, ⁓ major personal injury or illness. Okay, now you’ve got the whole list. Most of them have to deal with your marriage. So I’m just, I wanted to just applaud you that you’re thinking about marriage as a serious thing because it is so important. It’s so important to your physical health. It’s so important to your life. It will influence you in the positive or the negative the most. I really believe that, which is why I talk about marriage. But to tell you the truth, I’m not,

marriage obsessed. I’m obsessed with influence. I’m obsessed with changing the world. I want kingdom fruit out of this work. And so if your marriage is the most impactful thing, okay, let’s do it. Now what about it is impact?

So we’re kind of saying, all right, now we get that this can either harm you or help you the most in life, but what about it is? Like, can we zoom in and get clear on what about marriage is so impactful?

because marriage is made up of very tiny, tiny interactions over and over and over again on a consistent.

isn’t it? So you see them in the kitchen, you bump into each other, you’re talking here and there about something, you go to bed. The truth of the matter is more of your waking days are usually at work than they are with your spouse, but with your spouse is actually what’s most impactful. So here’s why it’s so important for me to try to convince you that marriage is so significant. Because

If you don’t think that what you do in your marriage matters to you or to them, then you’ll hold it with such a, ⁓ I mean, maybe the word is lazily. You’ll just be so lazy about it. You won’t recognize its value. And so what happens is people take their spouse for granted and then slowly that undermines and degrades

the relationship to such a degree that eventually the marriage breaks. And we already learned that is what can cause the most stress and destruction of a person, not to mention of the children and the people that know they’re Christians. I mean, what a absolute mess of representing the gospel poorly if

you’re called to love people and the one person you for sure must love, your spouse, you can’t even survive the trials of life because you’re thinking about someone other than your spouse. I’m not in the let’s be obsessed with marriage camp. I don’t think that. The reason I focus on marriage is because I want you to grow closer to Jesus and marriage is the best vehicle to do that as you serve.

as you love, you sacrifice for the other based on what the other needs, not based on you, not even based on your own personality, but based on what the other needs, you become a different person. You become a better person. It will change you in a good way.

I think that’s why God made marriage, that’s one of the reasons why God made marriage so impactful to us, is because men and women are very different, very different. We want different things in marriage. We need different things. We have different roles.

And so for each spouse to be fulfilled, each spouse has to step up. They have to grow as humans. They have to die to themselves to be able to get to a place to withstand the hard, to get together.

Every opportunity I have, try to teach my sons about character. We live in New York City and I think people from the Bible Belt, which I have a lot of those kinds of clients, which I love you. I’m so, so grateful you listen and I’m grateful I get to interact with you. But I think sometimes they’re insulated and they take things for granted. And we live in a society now that’s extremely connected. Your children are far more correct.

connected to other cultures of the United States than you ever were. And I’m telling you, in New York City, it’s a mission field. I mean, my kids are in a mission field. are no, there’s a single family that’s in geographical closeness with us that ⁓ follows Jesus like us. And then there’s probably one other family that we’re very close to now, thank God. But they’re more of

traditional Christians. I think they’re slowly getting more, more intentional because you just can’t like you can’t, you can’t keep calling Christ Christ and and be in a society that is so vehemently against it because at some point you have to choose a side. And so they’re they’re getting more more strong on their faith. Thank God, which is so cool to see. But the point of the matter is it’s a mission field. My kids live in a mission field.

Now, if you’re in the Bible belt, you might assume that your kids will be discipled at church. ⁓ Your kids will be discipled by other things, but the truth of the matter is you as a parent, you’ll influence them the most of their life. ⁓ Once they get married, then it’ll be their spouse, but before that, it’s you. And so if you neglect their character development, not just their spiritual,

not just telling them Bible stories, but actual character, what they see you as, because who you are before your kids is who they think Jesus is. Because if you swear up and down that Jesus is the Lord, or even you go to church and they just assume you believe in the Bible, maybe you pray in front of them, I’m not sure.

But they don’t see it in your character, if you’re not intentionally telling them these truths about the Bible and how they live out in your life,

they will get to a place where…

It is everywhere up here. Even those churches, those Christians, the people that might even have a cross on their steeple. You go inside and you find out they undermined the Bible. It’s almost like they’re ripping out pages of the Bible that they pretend they preach. And that’s really scary. And it should scare us. But then we get past the fear and we start girding up.

we start saying, hey, I’m not standing for this. I’m not standing for this. So again, notice your influence. Notice your influence. This is what happened yesterday. My son and I are carrying groceries home and because we live in New York City, you know, we’re always walking home from the grocery store or writing on our boards. ⁓ This particular time I was, ⁓

writing and he was walking because we weren’t able to figure it out to get his anyway point is because we were downtown and I had picked him up on my board and I didn’t point is that I’m carrying these heavy heavy heavy bags and he’s beside me and ⁓ over and over again I try to just tell him you know gosh this is hard but man I’m really glad it’s growing my muscles I know it’s good it’s good for me even though this is a challenge it is good for me.

And you know that verse in James, remember we were talking about that the other day, where it says, be glad, pure joy when you experience hard things, because it grows your endurance, it grows your persistence, it grows your determination. And so those are the kinds of stories that I try to share with him, just little drops of influence, little seeds, planting little seeds. That’s the kind of influence you have on your spouse.

little tiny seeds, little tiny com comments, little tiny things that, that clearly show you respect them. If you’re a wife, little tiny compliments that, that show that they, they, ⁓ you have a, they have a good reputation in your eyes. You see the good in them. It’s just, it doesn’t have to be big, long.

conversations where you try to make it clear. No, no, no, just little tiny seeds, but it has to be consistent. It has to be consistent. And the same way with husbands, safety. If you’ve been around a while, you know that they’ll your marriage framework. it’s for husbands to make their wives feel safe, known, and wholeheartedly cherished. And then for husbands, it’s to…

I’m sorry, for wives to husbands is to respect him, admire him and wholehearted sexual intimacy. And so that’s the Delight Your Marriage framework that we really lean into. So if you haven’t listened to other episodes, you’ll learn the depths of that, if you will. You could even go to 000 episode and really get a pretty clear rundown of what that is.

The other thing is you could go to delightyourmarriage.com slash framework, and then you get a download where it is very specific in that framework as well.

But the point is, you want to show your spouse all of those things.

through very tiny seeds, little planted seeds, little comets, little complements. And it has to be genuine. These have to be genuine, but don’t miss the opportunity to influence.

I think sometimes we forget that yes, our faith is a private thing. Like the Bible talks about, you know, if you’re fasting or if you’re praying, go into your private prayer closet and do that sort of stuff. But I think we’ve taken that to an additional level that shouldn’t be taken to. ⁓ What I think sometimes people say, well then my whole faith journey needs to be private. I shouldn’t talk about how I…

praise the Lord or what I’m praying about or what I’m thinking about. No, I don’t think that’s true because the Bible is consistently talking about our journey with God. Paul specifically is talking about things he’s thinking about and how he’s praying and he falls to his knees and prays and talks about the riches of the love of God and the power. No, no, no. We’re talking about faith. There’s no question there. So I just invite you, plant seeds of good.

in your spouse. Plant seeds of good, little by little by little. Have little habits that you do every day. It has to be consistent. It’s either consistent good in your spouse, for your spouse, or it’s consistent bad. It’s either a consistent self-serving or consistent self-sacrifice. And I’ll tell you, husbands and wives are different. If you are loving the other,

the way they receive love.

then you are dying to yourself. You’re dying to yourself. Naturally, we don’t want to do the things that we don’t want to do. And if you’re married to a man and you are a woman, you have to recognize that you agreed to certain things on your wedding day, namely to love your spouse the way they receive love in

some kind of words that are basically meaning that. If you’re a husband married to a woman, you promised to love her the way that she receives love.

And so for men and for women, really, this is a very helpful thing to think about.

how you plant the seeds, how you interact with your spouse, how you have your regular normal interactions. You want to be attentive to that in the same way that if you were about to have a hard conversation with your boss, you would be attentive to how you speak to them. Remember, your spouse is way more important than your boss. We spent a lot of time today talking about.

your marriage being way more significant to you and to your future and to your stress levels and to your physical health than even any kind of work situation.

So I encourage you to just jot down a couple of things, if you would, when you’re passionate about something.

I have a tendency, I’m a very passionate person. And I mean in terms of strength of conviction, I’m passionate in that way.

I have to be really intentional to be cautious of the way I communicate something. So even when I’m 10 out of 10 convicted about this particular point, when I’m speaking to my husband, I need to be cautious about how I talk about it. Because if I talk about it in a way that’s off-putting, it makes him go away from what I’m saying.

no matter of the topic, it’s just the way I said it. It’s just the way I said it. So if I want to have influence in my spouse, I have to be cautious about how I present what I’m presenting.

So I would love for you to jot down.

⁓ Soft eyes. Soft eyes. So if you’re very convicted about something, no matter what it is, see if you can just think in the moment, soft eyes. Like, are my eyes too intense right now? It’s just, just let that thought go through your head. I need soft eyes right now. Okay. Then a gentle tone. A gentle tone.

It is so easy for me to get in the wrong tone. In fact, when I used to work with At-Risk Youth, I was a program manager in New York City, actually. I learned a lot through that, but I remember one…

one of my coworkers said something that I’ll never forget. And she was giving me some insight because I could see she was so much more effective with the young people than me. Really, she was amazing. But she said, the thing you have to remember, I was asking her for advice and she said, you need to take the fire out of your voice. It’s hard, but you have to take a fire out of your voice.

And so I just invite you to think about that with your spouse. Take the fire out of your voice. They’re gonna be able to hear you much better if you can just take that harshness out. I slip into it too, I really do. It’s embarrassing and I have to go back and apologize. Even to other people. ⁓ Even when I’m talking to somebody about faith, I can get in this harsh space and it’s wrong. I need soft eyes.

I need a gentle tone. And then I would say slow down your pace. Slow down your pace of speaking.

So I almost don’t want to practice this in front of you of the wrong, but I just want you to feel in your body how this sounds. I’m going to communicate the exact same thing in a harsh way. And then I’m going to communicate it in a way that I’m kind of describing these three elements. So what you need to do is actually make a difference in the way you say something to your spouse. You can’t just say whatever you want.

It’s not okay. You can’t just do that. All right, do you feel it? Do you feel what just happened in your body?

Probably your heart started pumping differently. You’re probably breathing a little differently. Your adrenaline and cortisol probably increased just by somebody saying something harshly in your ears.

So I want to invite you to consider how it feels on the receiving end of your spouse hearing you speak in a harsh way with fire in your voice. And you might have imagined my eyes were intense. They were, they were intense.

And so the exact same thing can be communicated.

but communicated effectively. Because what you only receive from me right now was how your body just went on high alert. Like I’m being attacked here. Why is this person so angry? Why are they so mean? And unfortunately, if that’s how you approach your spouse when you are significantly convicted about something, they are not going to heal.

They’re not going to receive it as important. They’re just going to see you as mean and harsh. And so I want to invite you to reflect on if this is so important, if this topic that you want to communicate to your spouse is so important, then you must recognize the way you say it will determine whether or not they receive it.

it will determine whether or not they receive it. So if you’ll notice, even while I’m explaining this to you, I’m explaining it pretty slowly. I’m giving gaps.

I’m pausing.

And I’m doing that really intentionally because I want you to get this. And I think it’s so important for you to get it that I’m dramatically pause so you can process. ⁓

Our brains don’t think as fast as we talk sometimes. We need time to process. And so what are the key steps to something that you really want to communicate so it influences your spouse?

is soft eyes, a gentle tone, and a slow pace. Soft eyes, gentle tone, slow pace. E-T-P, E-T-P. There you go. Soft eyes, gentle tone, slow pace. I don’t know if that’s going to help you remember it. I don’t have a fancy acronym yet developed. I might come up with them eventually.

So the thing is, if you recognize the power you have on your spouse, you’re gonna start being more cautious. So I’m giving you one tool. I’m giving you ideas of habits. I’m giving you ideas of planting seeds. I want you to recognize that power. What you say influences your spouse.

So, take care. Take care to influence them well. Be gentle about it. If it really matters to you, make sure you’re communicating it in a way that will be effective. Again, you would spend far more time thinking about how you’re going to communicate to something important to your boss. Now, you might immediately say, I don’t have time for that. That is way too much work.

And if, you know, that it’s just too much. And the truth of the matter, if Jesus said, love me with everything.

and love your spouse as you love yourself. And that’s the two greatest commandments when I get to eternity. If you’re a Jesus follower, I don’t know what to tell you. You don’t have enough time for the most important human. You don’t have enough time. And yet you want your spouse to have the bandwidth to love you well, and you feel

It’s unfair if they don’t. And yet they’re just dealing with this gaping wound because you are being harsh and mean.

and disregarding what they need to feel loved and to be healed in their marriage.

So you do have the time. And I invite you to expand the time. Most topics, though it’s uncomfortable to not have it settled immediately, that is uncomfortable, I agree. But almost every topic that you could bring up can be handled patiently. It can be handled over multiple conversations. Just because it came up.

It doesn’t have to be handled right then, right there. The truth of the matter is God might want to plant seeds in that person’s heart for months, honestly, maybe years. I was telling you about my neighbor who’s slowly becoming more faithful.

⁓ in a faith that was just traditional for them. And now they’re seeing it as, wow, I need to actually take this seriously because there’s plenty of people around me who are being completely against Christianity, which side am I gonna take? So the point is, I don’t rush her. I just have honest, open, gentle… ⁓ Sorry, let me clarify that. I don’t have fully open conversations with her. That’s not true.

because I just know where she is right now and I just plant little seeds here and there. And I love her and I love her son. we’re just, you know, we just have them over all the time and just little by little by little, but it’s not on my timeline. I trust God for it. That’s probably my next point is trust God. When you wanna push and force and require,

things to happen on your timeline, are not, you are not trusting God. I fall into it too. I’ve fallen into it so many times. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I do. When I rush, when I hurry, when I want something to be done ASAP, so many times I am not trusting God. Now, the truth of the matter is,

I, there are things that need to be done more quickly than others. And it’s not like I’m against you going fast at times, but in terms of dealing with your spouse and in terms of dealing with the most significant issues in life or most significant people in life, actually, that’s the better way of saying it, ⁓ I want you to recognize rushing is going to harm it.

and it will undermine and slowly this habit of rushing, this habit of things have to be settled now because I don’t like the discomfort of it not being settled now. I don’t wanna deal with that discomfort. Then you very well may be sacrificing the future of your family.

And divorce deeply, deeply impacts children. Deeply.

Because a divorced human is very different than a married human. A divorced human is now thinking about themselves and thinking about potentially getting a boyfriend or a girlfriend. They’re not thinking about the children that are entrusted to them that they need to be investing in. I’ve just seen that so many times. And if you’re really honest with yourself, you likely have seen that too. If you hopefully not, but if you have ever contemplated divorce,

It is a risk to your own soul.

It really is.

It’s a risk, not only does God hate divorce, that’s true, but it is a risk to you becoming so self-centered and so self-focused that you neglect the humans that are in your care. Certainly it used to be your spouse. And there are some times that the spouse will not stay and the Bible says, your spouse will not stay, you are not beholden to them. But if they will stay, if they will stay, 1 Corinthians 7, you might make them holy.

because you yourself are following Jesus. That’s a paraphrase.

If you could understand the influence you have on your spouse, you would be more careful with how you speak to them. You really would. Husbands, I wish you knew how powerful you were. I think a big reason our society is so broken is because men have not stood up.

with knowing full well their power. And power, don’t mean ruling with an iron fist. I don’t mean… ⁓

I just mean your strength. just mean your capability of changing. When there is a man standing up for something important, it changes everything.

right now in this society, men are cowardly. ⁓ And it’s so sad. It’s so sad. Look, a strong man is not a harsh man. A strong man is so intentional around using his power well that he doesn’t get angry on flipping. If it’s so imp—

important, he will choose to have soft eyes, to have a gentle tone, to have a slow pace because it’s that important. You want to be effective. You want to influence the humans in front of you the most. So you take it that seriously. But if you think, if you think you’re not that influential,

you actually won’t be, because people will just write you off. They’ll just write you off as crazy or not being able to be self-controlled. Now they don’t maybe think that consciously, but it’s obvious. this person is just going to fly off the handle. I don’t have to pay attention to what they say, because the way they say it is so off-putting.

And sadly, I have done this so many times, not just to my husband, but to people I’ve talked about faith with. I need this. I need this. I need this acronym. I need to remember soft eyes, gentle tone, slow pace, S-G-S. How are we gonna get this acronym?

It needs to be soft eyes.

Gentle tone, slow pace.

S-E, let’s do it, S-E-G-T-T-S-P. It just doesn’t work. I don’t know how to fix this acronym. I guess we’re just gonna have to do it the old fashioned way with repetition and memorization. Dag nabbit. All right, so you have influence. Your spouse is the one you can influence the most. And the most effective is when you…

are careful about how you say it. Soft eyes, gentle tone, slow pace. You want your habits, little, little seeds to be consistent. You wanna be open with the way you’re following Jesus. You don’t have to pontificate on it in a prideful way, but also don’t hide it. Don’t hide it. Just little seeds here and there. Helps people to know this is real for you.

I do share with my boys how I, my different spiritual habits. I do share that, but not in a way of I’m so great, but in a way of, hey, this is how you follow Jesus. Follow me as I follow Jesus. That’s, listen, if I thought I was wrong, I would change the way I follow Jesus. I want to do it the right way. So I should be sharing what I know. I will say I really don’t like false humility.

God has taught people things. Let’s not pretend he hasn’t. It is a glory to the Lord for him to teach us things. And when we share it with others, it is a glory to the Lord. The only way I can do the work I do is because of Jesus. ⁓ I can’t do this myself and I fall on my face a lot. And the beauty of that is people, every time that happens, you know, I’m…

I’m honored that people are influenced by what I say. But when I get it wrong and I do, when I get it wrong, what that does is it’s an opportunity for people to realize, Bella’s not Jesus. I need to be going to Jesus for these things. I need to trust the Holy Spirit. I need to look in my Bible because Bella’s gonna get it wrong. Because she’s a human and every person you listen to is gonna get it wrong. Sometimes your pastor, they all are.

And a lot of times, sadly, it’s because we’re human and we rush sometimes. And I don’t even realize, I’m talking to a precious soul, something maybe they’re never gonna forget and I will never remember.

And that’s sad because I have been sadly ⁓ wrongly spoken to, if you will, by someone who will never remember me, by people. This has happened. It’s not that they’re thinking about how they treated me. I’m thinking about it. ⁓ If I don’t forgive them and let it go, but that’s a process of recognizing that.

I can let it go and it’s better for me. It’s better for me. So.

Yes, your spouse has influenced you and maybe that’s extremely difficult ⁓ because they’ve influenced you in a really terrible way and their harshness and their meanness and their, so many aspects, not loving you the way you receive love, being so self-centered and that’s hard. So that process is forgiveness. That’s the process of forgiveness and from there,

getting to a place where you now can do the right thing for them. You have to forgive, otherwise you won’t have any motivation to do the right thing. I want you to have the motivation to do the right thing, to influence them in the right way. Because I will tell you that, I mean, that’s what my work is all about.

You can’t change your spouse, but yes, you can influence them. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. You can influence the marriage towards Jesus.

If we tie our hands and say we can’t impact people that

It’s just wrong. It’s just wrong. Yes, what we do makes a difference. What are you gonna do with that power? What are you gonna do with that influence?

Take it seriously. Don’t waste your influence. Don’t waste the opportunity that you have to influence your spouse for Jesus. I do believe when I get to heaven, how I influence my spouse will matter. I do believe I will be judged on that. I think it’s pretty clear.

I want, this is on my life vision, I want the day that my husband meets Jesus to be consistently in my thoughts. And I want that day to go better because of how I influenced him towards Jesus.

Another way of saying that is how I attracted him towards Jesus. Because if I was so gung-ho about Jesus, but treated him poorly, and I didn’t care about my tone, I didn’t care about my harshness, I didn’t care about how I treated him, I was so self-centered, that doesn’t seem like I attracted him very much to Jesus, did it?

I want that for you. I want your spouse to be better off because of you on judgment day. Because they will be judged too.

So let’s get the focus off ourselves.

Let’s serve well from a good heart, from a heart that recognizes how much influence we have on our spouse, for good or for bad.

If our spouse is spending three days ⁓ mulling over the last argument we had with them, that means we influenced them for bad.

Three days of wasted opportunities to interact with Jesus and for our spouse to impact souls in a good way and all that. Yeah, that means we we failed.

There’s so much more I can say. But let me just suffice it to say that God has given you influence. He’s given you power. Now, if you think you don’t have it, you will not use it wisely. And in fact, your influence will lessen. But if you think you have influence, if you think you do impact people, then you will be more careful. And guess what?

you will be able to impact not only your spouse more, but other people more. It will grow. Your influence will grow. You have to start with a recognition and a faith that you in fact have influence. You in fact have power. You in fact can influence people. You in fact can ultimately see people in heaven with you because of your self-controlled

intentional, loving influence.

Let’s go ahead and pray. Lord Jesus, ⁓ you are faithful and good. You are so amazing. Thank you for the opportunity we have.

to influential in our spouse’s life. What an honor that you would trust us with this daughter or this son of yours that you designed, that is your masterpiece, that you knit them together in their mother’s womb and then you’ve entrusted them to us.

Let us not take that lightly. Let us not take that for granted, God. Father, I pray that every person listening to my voice would gain a greater measure.

of recognition of how valuable their spouse is.

that yes, it is worth it to love their spouse well, because this is their first human assignment, even before ministry. As I believe it’s 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 3 maybe as well, but ultimately it says,

If you can’t manage your own household, if you can’t take care of your own home.

husband to one wife. How? How can you take care of the bride of Christ?

It absolutely has to happen in that order.

Lord, help this one to recognize their influence, take it seriously, and walk in it. Walk in it wisely. And I pray even for a grace to repent, for them to gain insight into how they need to apologize to you, God, for taking their influence not only for granted, but having a foul attitude about it.

whiny spirit that they don’t have enough influence. No. If they took, if they trusted you, if they had a faith that yes, in fact, you have given them influence slowly, slowly, slowly.

as they wisely invest in their character and make self-controlled choices, they would have more.

And I just don’t want any person hearing my voice miss an opportunity that when they get to heaven, they will regret that they didn’t take their influence more seriously.

that they didn’t plant the seeds, they didn’t have the self-control, they didn’t choose a soft voice and they didn’t choose ⁓ soft eyes and an even tone and a slow pace. They didn’t choose those things. Give them grace to see they can plant seeds every single day, every single day that you’re gonna water and their spouse and anyone and everyone else. And Lord, I also pray for myself for grace in this. I stumble.

over and over and over again. But I ask you for grace. When I stumble to come right on back, Daddy, you take us back. You take us back if we repent. Your blood was shed.

Lord, just let us humble ourselves and repent. In Jesus’ Amen.

All right, my precious listener, thank you for sharing this time with me. ⁓

I invite you to influence and influence wisely. You do influence. So influence, use that influence wisely.

If you want to work with us, DelightYourMarriage.com slash cc is your next step. All right. God bless you. And we’ll talk next week. Bye.