Dale Partridge - Ultimate Marriage #19： The Daily Routine That Keeps Our Family Close To God

00:00:00.000 hey guys and welcome to ultimate marriage today we are talking about our daily routine and what

00:00:16.080 keeps us close to God yeah so the daily routine that keeps us close to God we get this question

00:00:22.020 all the time we're gonna go into a little bit more detail today and we're also gonna offer you

00:00:28.740 guys i think some really practical wisdom um and practical things to do um because i think a lot

00:00:35.360 of people are asking for practical stuff you know they don't want the you know ethereal or

00:00:40.020 theological side all the time um yeah so we're just going to share what we do and give you guys

00:00:45.800 some ideas yeah and uh before we jump into that this is going to be a little bit of a unique show

00:00:50.460 we've never done this before but uh we've just been praying about this and thought it's important

00:00:56.520 to share and make a request to you guys. So Ultimate Marriage, if you don't know, is a

00:01:04.300 ministry under our nonprofit, relearnchurch.org. And, you know, our mission at ReLearn Church is

00:01:12.780 to bring the church back to the Bible. Veronica and I have been planting biblical house churches

00:01:18.000 and have been involved in that kind of movement for some time now. And we started that ministry

00:01:23.320 for that. Ultimate marriage came under that. And the reason is, is that in order to have biblical,

00:01:30.160 healthy, fruitful churches, you need to have strong, mature marriages, spiritually mature

00:01:39.320 families, and spiritually mature men. And I don't say to neglect the women, but I really do believe

00:01:45.660 if you fix the men, if you can help them be mature, it really does kind of come down the line

00:01:52.180 in terms of helps the women, the wives, helps the children, everything falls from the men.

00:01:59.680 And ultimate marriage is our effort to fulfill the marriage, I guess, part of that mission

00:02:08.800 is to help create biblical, thriving, fruitful marriages

00:02:13.880 and just to equip Christian couples with what the Bible has to say about having a biblical marriage.

00:02:20.960 And right now, guys, if you don't know, we have 20,000 weekly listeners.

00:02:26.980 That's about 80,000 downloads a month.

00:02:30.300 And how many weeks have we been doing this?

00:02:32.000 Yeah, this is episode.

00:02:33.140 This is 19.

00:02:34.040 Oh, is it like 18?

00:02:34.980 So not even a half a year.

00:02:37.260 And we have become the most reviewed and the highest rated marriage podcast in the world.

00:02:46.540 and this is very humbling to us especially because we've been doing this podcast in the

00:02:52.540 midst of sickness insanity and trials trials over here um but i wanted to say a couple things

00:03:00.100 one is this show brings in zero money we don't have any advertisers on the show

00:03:06.260 there is yeah there's no income from the show and the the show costs us about a thousand dollars a

00:03:16.440 month to put on out of our pocket that's not including veronica and i's time but just in

00:03:22.800 production costs and editing let alone the equipment which is thousands and thousands of

00:03:27.460 dollars, and just our team to get this stuff going. So it is expensive to do. And I wanted

00:03:37.220 to share a couple testimonials about this podcast that we've heard, and they're just

00:03:44.260 heart-wrenching and incredible and powerful. And I want to share two of them. And some of

00:03:50.080 them are coming from single people. Some of them are coming from teenagers. Some of them

00:03:53.060 are coming from married folks. Some of them are coming from divorcees that are trying to redeem

00:03:58.900 their marriage. I mean, these are incredible. Some are from single people. Some are from single

00:04:03.000 people. They're listening to the marriage podcast. Yes, yes. And so there's such a wide range of

00:04:07.540 listeners to this show. I'm going to read you real quick one of these testimonials, and then

00:04:13.080 Veronica is going to read one as well, just to kind of give you an idea of how the show's impacting

00:04:17.700 some people. This woman says, my husband and I are so thankful to have found Dale and Veronica

00:04:24.360 through Instagram and have been following their podcast and social media for a few weeks now.

00:04:30.380 It's so refreshing, inspiring, freeing, and convicting to hear their boldness as they preach

00:04:35.900 God's word without dancing around its truths to be relevant. My soul feels like it was aching to

00:04:41.540 be a biblical wife, but I've been told often that the Bible doesn't, quote, really mean what it says

00:04:47.720 a wife should be and do. The last few weeks, God has been freeing me, and I have been constantly

00:04:54.040 repenting of the wife I have been. My husband and I have a marriage that is thriving because

00:04:59.940 God's word is cleansing us through Dale and Veronica's ministry. We are 25 in our second

00:05:05.680 year of marriage and have a three-month-old baby girl. Our lives have been in chaos for a little

00:05:11.220 while, and our marriage has been on a bad trajectory. I'm so thankful for this podcast

00:05:17.560 and their ministry, which has opened our eyes to where we were not following the Lord and has

00:05:23.580 helped us begin to heal and grow in our marriage. I'm also so thankful that I'm being retaught what

00:05:29.960 the Bible says for me to be and to do as a wife before my daughter is old enough to understand

00:05:36.480 my poor example. Thank you, Jesus, for these people. And so that's just one testimonial,

00:05:46.000 and we get these often. You know, sometimes they're in the form of an Instagram message,

00:05:51.960 sometimes email, and sometimes just listed on the reviews. Veronica's going to read another

00:05:59.300 one real quick, and I just want you guys to grasp what the Lord is doing here, the kingdom perspective,

00:06:05.480 not this isn't our thing but what the Lord is doing here yeah so the next review I'm going to

00:06:11.760 go ahead and read it as a teenage girl following your podcast has changed me in a silent but very

00:06:16.780 very impactful way I'm currently 16 and I live in Canada when I first followed I found that I would

00:06:23.300 immediately disagree with some of the things that you two said and I think this was because of my

00:06:27.800 liberal and feminist friends have impacted me in my own worldview over time I realized there is so

00:06:33.900 much more truth in your words. Before this year, I was convinced I didn't want to have kids in the

00:06:39.000 future. I figured that there were more important things to do with my life and family wasn't much

00:06:44.120 of a priority to me. I focused on getting a good education to land a dream job in a few years.

00:06:49.940 I also didn't think much about relationships. It didn't matter to me if I found a boyfriend who was

00:06:54.320 a Christian or not. I had the rest of my life planned out and family just didn't seem to matter

00:06:58.760 to me much. But some of your episodes have seriously reshaped my attitude towards relationships and

00:07:03.300 family. It started when I noticed how much you emphasize your marriage with Veronica.

00:07:07.460 At first, I imagined your marriage as extremely unequal. I thought it was ridiculous that you 0.79

00:07:12.040 had power over her and she was okay with it. But now I've come to realize that it isn't about that.

00:07:16.800 It is about living out the roles which God has called you to. I've learned that I don't have to

00:07:21.640 fit society's expectations of what a woman has to be, and I've learned to recognize my identity in

00:07:26.600 Christ rather than in the world. Thank you. Okay. So these are again, just some unique

00:07:32.360 testimonials that are coming through that the Lord is using this content, speaking of God's truth

00:07:39.040 to change people's hearts and minds around marriage. And there's tons of them like that.

00:07:44.040 I mean, you guys can go to the reviews and read them. Yeah. They're amazing. Read them yourselves.

00:07:48.040 There's like, there's a ton of them. It's amazing. Yeah. And it's humbling. It is humbling. And

00:07:52.300 beyond this, we've had people that have emailed us men that are saying, hey, we've quit pornography

00:07:57.060 because of this show. Thank you for sharing the truth about pornography. People who have

00:08:02.860 stopped their divorce, they have divorce papers and they didn't sign them because

00:08:07.460 they listened to an episode. I mean, it is so weird to even talk about, but how the Lord is

00:08:14.000 using this show to really save families. I mean, that's what's happening is to save families.

00:08:22.300 Praise God. And, um, you know, we, we, I wanted to share this because we have an opportunity

00:08:26.960 to grow this show dramatically. We have advertising opportunities that keep presenting

00:08:33.160 themselves that we don't have the funding for. Um, we have, um, uh, production opportunities,

00:08:40.040 uh, to make the show better. We have opportunities to get the show featured on certain media outlets

00:08:45.440 and, and opportunities to get this, um, uh, the show put on other outlets so that everybody that's

00:08:51.620 iphone and android and any other device can actually hear the show we just uh we just don't

00:08:57.280 have the funding yeah last year we sold our business and we entered into full-time ministry

00:09:03.120 and yeah we've we've lost a lot of the i guess financing to produce the show yeah um and on top

00:09:14.620 of that like we've said and if you've listening been listening to the show for any amount of time

00:09:18.340 you'll know that we've been what seems like under almost constant attack from the enemy.

00:09:24.560 And it's limited how much we could work.

00:09:27.140 But yeah, we sold our businesses and we paid off our house.

00:09:31.200 We did the right thing in terms of getting rid of our debt and we made some good investments.

00:09:35.280 But yeah, we don't make lots of money.

00:09:38.440 We come from the entrepreneur space where, yeah, I was an entrepreneur and we were making money.

00:09:43.400 But now we're in ministry.

00:09:44.780 We're pastoring a church, a small home church.

00:09:48.340 Um, and we're doing this and we spent a lot of time studying God's word and ministering to people.

00:09:54.020 Um, and the reason I'm saying this is because I want to ask you guys to consider something.

00:10:00.020 Um, because this is a ministry under our nonprofit, would you guys, if you've listened to this show

00:10:06.560 regularly, um, or if this is just your first time and you feel a Lord calling you, um, would you

00:10:12.800 become a monthly supporter of the podcast? And I'm going to tell you how to do that. I'm talking

00:10:17.940 like five to 20 bucks a month, like $5 a month. If you could do $5 a month, that would really,

00:10:24.820 if we can just, there's so much ministry opportunity and there's so much that the

00:10:29.520 Lord can do here, but we do absolutely need your help. And so $5 a month, $10 a month, $25. Maybe

00:10:35.960 it's just a one-time thing. It's the end of the year and you want to give $100 or more, whatever

00:10:40.940 you want to do. It would be a huge blessing to us. It's not about paying us salaries. It's not

00:10:47.140 about making, we make enough money to pay for our own bills. We want to make sure that this show

00:10:52.060 goes somewhere. We can invest back into the show and into the ministry. So if you're interested

00:10:58.320 in supporting us in any capacity, you can just go to relearnchurch.org forward slash donate.

00:11:07.400 Again, that's relearnchurch.org forward slash donate. And it's super easy. You can set it up

00:11:14.280 you can just go like $5. You can check the box to make it monthly. You put your credit card

00:11:18.760 information and it automatically just goes. It'll just send you a receipt every month for $5 or

00:11:23.180 whatever happens there. You can do it from your phone. You can do it anywhere. Again, that's

00:11:29.620 relearnchurch.org forward slash donate. So we just wanted to mention that. And it's humbling to ask,

00:11:38.400 but we'd love for your help

00:11:41.200 and if it's the Lord's work

00:11:42.800 then he'll get it done

00:11:43.900 so moving on

00:11:46.800 into our show today

00:11:48.480 why don't you open up

00:11:51.140 with some scripture

00:11:52.180 that we're going to talk about

00:11:53.160 alright

00:11:54.560 so we're going to open up

00:11:55.980 with 2 Timothy 2.15

00:11:57.700 be diligent to present yourself

00:11:59.680 approved to God

00:12:00.880 a worker who does not need

00:12:02.320 to be ashamed

00:12:03.000 rightly dividing the word of truth

00:12:04.640 this scripture has been

00:12:07.060 really important to us. When you think about why have a biblical home? You know, why, like what is

00:12:17.300 the argument in scripture to know scripture? What is the argument in scripture to form and conform

00:12:25.760 your house and your schedules and your routine around understanding and knowing the word of God?

00:12:32.740 Well, that's the scripture that we just read. Why don't you read it again?

00:12:36.120 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God,

00:12:38.380 a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

00:12:42.440 Yeah, so this is 2 Timothy 2.15.

00:12:45.420 And I want to break this down real quick.

00:12:48.020 And then I'm going to break down one more verse. 1.00

00:12:49.760 And then Veronica is going to share her daily routine,

00:12:53.040 some of the things that she does in her weekly and monthly schedules

00:12:56.300 to make sure that we have a biblical home.

00:12:59.000 And then I'm going to do the same thing.

00:13:00.320 So the first thing, it says, be diligent to present yourself approved to God. So I want to

00:13:07.600 talk about diligent. Are you diligent? I know, you know, my flesh doesn't want to read the Bible.

00:13:15.260 Like in my flesh, I don't want to put time aside to read the Bible. I don't want to put time aside

00:13:19.980 to pray. I don't want to put time aside to study. I don't want to put time aside to leave my family,

00:13:24.660 to pray with my family, to teach my wife the word. I don't want to do any of that in my flesh,

00:13:28.020 you know and so we have to recognize that this is a call to be diligent to be diligent to be

00:13:36.540 faithful yeah to be faithful and and it's hard to do but this is paul talking to timothy this is a

00:13:44.980 i would i would believe believe is an absolute doctrine to the church universal doctrine and

00:13:50.460 this is be diligent to present yourself a proof to god a worker who does not need to be ashamed

00:13:56.280 rightly dividing the word of truth. And a worker who does not need to be ashamed means that you can

00:14:02.960 be ashamed for not studying. If you don't know, and you can't rightly divide the word of truth,

00:14:10.560 if you don't know the word of God, a child who doesn't know his father's desires should feel

00:14:17.380 shameful. Now, it doesn't mean that you feel guilty in terms of like you're losing your

00:14:21.480 salvation or that you're lost or that you're outside of his love. But you can absolutely be

00:14:26.880 disciplined through that kind of conviction of, oh, I don't know. Not because you're new,

00:14:32.200 but because you've been around for a long time and you haven't taken the initiative to be diligent

00:14:38.360 to show yourself approved. You've actually denied and been lazy because you haven't prioritized the

00:14:44.820 word of God in your life. And this is what the scripture is talking about. Paul's saying, be

00:14:52.040 diligent and be approved where God goes, wow, yeah, you know the word, you know what's right.

00:14:58.040 You can rightly divide the word of truth. And I want to talk lastly about that concept of rightly

00:15:02.000 dividing. You can wrongly divide the word of truth. Yeah, that's what it's implying. Well,

00:15:08.520 we've met people that have wrongly divided the truth on almost every matter. And sadly,

00:15:14.700 in humility, we have too. It is a practice of learning to rightly divide the word of truth.

00:15:22.960 And that's understanding hermeneutics in terms of the art and interpretation, the art and science

00:15:28.500 of interpretation of scripture. It's a big word, very easy understanding, but understanding how

00:15:34.980 to read the Bible. Beyond that, this word rightly dividing could also mean you're so mature that you

00:15:45.180 know how to rightly divide the truth in this manner, that you would give the gospel to the

00:15:50.460 lost, that you would give milk to the babies, that you would give meat to the adults. It means that

00:15:55.880 you know how to divide the word up in the way that you present it to other people, and that is a sign

00:16:01.060 of maturity. This scripture is a call for us to be mature believers, among many others in scripture.

00:16:09.500 So I want you guys just to take this whole thing that we're talking about before Veronica starts

00:16:14.160 here in a second, and just blanket it with this idea of God calls us, the scriptures call us to

00:16:21.840 know the word and know it well. The second scripture I'm going to read,

00:16:26.680 um i feel like i'm doing too much talking today but well i'll get into it next is uh jeremiah 9

00:16:34.340 23 through 24 why don't you read it for me thus says the lord let not the wise man glory in his

00:16:42.760 wisdom let not the mighty man glory in his might nor let the rich man glory in his riches but let

00:16:48.980 him who glories in this, that he understands and knows me well. Yes. And so this concept of,

00:16:56.520 but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me. And so I want to make

00:17:05.200 sure you guys hear the distinction between understanding and knowing God. Knowing God is

00:17:10.440 reading God's word. Lots of Christians know God. Very few Christians, sadly, in the church in

00:17:16.720 America today understand God. They can't explain their faith. They can't share the gospel. They 1.00

00:17:21.260 don't know how to do it. They can't defend the basic elements of the faith. They can't get in

00:17:25.720 a conversation about creation versus evolution. They can't have a conversation about biblical

00:17:29.780 sexuality. They can't understand a conversation about life. When does it begin? There's a lack 0.97

00:17:35.360 of understanding the deeper parts of God. Knowing God is reading God's word and praying.

00:17:42.400 just the same as knowing a person you know how do we how do we know people like spend time with

00:17:48.700 them yeah to know them ask them questions which is different dive into conversation and it's

00:17:53.160 different than understanding somebody you know how long does it take to understand somebody

00:17:58.920 you know a year a couple years i don't know just depends on how deeply you know them yeah and i

00:18:04.620 think it's the hours right it's like it's the the amount of hours that you spend with these people

00:18:09.340 And so study time, like where you get to really unearth through trials, through pain, through experiences, through history, through on-your-face prayer, through moments, through really getting deep into the Word of God, understanding God.

00:18:24.700 So we take these two scriptures and kind of put them as the foundation of why we do and why we live the life that we live.

00:18:37.540 How we order our lives and our daily routines.

00:18:40.780 And you should too.

00:18:41.740 I'm encouraging you guys to do that.

00:18:43.620 And so Veronica is going to share with what she does.

00:18:46.800 And then I will share what I do.

00:18:49.640 yeah so when we're trying to keep god and christ at the center of our marriage and our family and

00:18:55.680 our life um the first thing i would do is just seek del's leadership in that i'll ask him

00:19:01.200 if there's anything that he wants me to be reading is there anything that he wants me

00:19:05.140 to learn or what he wants me to be reading in scripture and then i'll ask him if the um there's

00:19:11.720 anything that i should in particular that he wants me to be teaching and guiding the children in

00:19:16.640 obviously he he does most of that um but i kind of execute your i guess call on that leadership

00:19:25.560 vision on that yeah and um sometimes you'll give me passages of scripture that you want me to read

00:19:32.360 and other times usually i'm just kind of already reading something sure and i'll just chat with

00:19:37.180 you about what i'm reading and this doesn't mean that veronica doesn't have her own relationship

00:19:43.140 with God where she can determine what she's going to read she just turns to me in that yeah and the

00:19:48.980 reason I do that in Ephesians 5 24 it says therefore just as a church is subject to Christ 0.73

00:19:55.520 so let wives be to their own husbands and everything so I kind of defer to Dale in all

00:20:01.420 things especially our faith and then so my kind of day starts out I wake up early I wake about an 0.76

00:20:09.880 hour and a half before the kids. And I go into my lovely closet and I read my Bible for about,

00:20:17.240 I don't know, 20 to 30 minutes, probably about 30 minutes. And that's followed by exercise. So

00:20:22.320 usually I'll exercise for about 20 or 30 minutes before that, just to kind of wake me up. I'm not

00:20:26.960 a morning person. So I'll exercise and then I'll read my Bible. And I know we've answered some of

00:20:31.240 these questions around this before, but bear with us. We're going to go a little bit deeper into

00:20:35.860 detail than what we have in the past. And again, this happens. I do this all before the kids wake

00:20:40.840 up. Once I'm done reading my Bible, then I'll start getting ready for the day. Um, and then

00:20:45.340 by the time the kids come down, I'm generally ready. Um, and then during the school day or

00:20:52.380 just the day, if I'm, if I'm homeschooling or if I'm not homeschooling, you know, my daughter's

00:20:56.320 like barely doing kindergarten stuff. And so it's not like, I don't have to be super consistent

00:21:01.560 with her right now yet um but yeah i'll walk with the kids and through some short bible time story

00:21:09.400 and i'll explain to them what it means and i'll try and make whatever it is i teach them um

00:21:15.400 into a tangible lesson some type of craft that goes with what we're learning yeah we just did

00:21:21.740 the creation story so the kids were you know yeah every day we did a day of creation yeah

00:21:28.700 seven days of creation at the end she made her little creek she had a creation book and so we

00:21:33.520 put all the pictures that she made into this book that she has and it's her creation book

00:21:37.380 um and she's really excited about that so yeah and i try to make it fun for them too which is

00:21:43.940 why we do the crafts and stuff so that way they associate learning about god is fun and it's

00:21:49.760 enjoyable and and another thing that i often have to remind myself is that for me the great

00:21:57.720 commission starts with my children i am preaching the gospel to my children all day long in a

00:22:03.940 variety of ways um that being one of them teaching them creation the creation story yeah and if you

00:22:09.460 you know i've seen so many mothers that love their children and hate motherhood because they don't

00:22:13.700 have a vision for what what what they're doing in terms of a kingdom vision yeah i think it's

00:22:21.220 really important to remember that our children if they have not accepted christ are lost they're

00:22:26.940 little lost people that don't have the holy spirit and you have to have a kingdom perspective

00:22:31.660 in your day-to-day parenting because if not if you're just annoyed that your kid's doing this

00:22:37.960 again and again and again and it's an inconvenience um you know there's going to be a ton of

00:22:44.740 inconvenient moments in parenting in life um but if you have a kingdom perspective you don't

00:22:50.660 necessarily look at the issue at hand as an inconvenience. You look at it as a privilege

00:22:56.360 to do the work of the ministry that God has put on you. You see it as a privilege to,

00:23:02.700 and in a moment to, to guide their spirits. And to, you can endure. Yes. With a vision.

00:23:12.800 Totally. You know, that, that, you know, you can go, oh, I can deal with this issue because

00:23:19.140 i can see what i'm really doing here yes and if you don't if you forget for a second look at a

00:23:25.620 mother with older children who are in their 20s now and go man there will be a day you know that

00:23:33.860 my my my boys and girls will be not boys and girls but husbands and wives and mothers and

00:23:40.160 fathers themselves men and women and then there's this quote i'm sure a lot of you guys have heard

00:23:45.560 it especially if you're a parent it says the the days are long but the years are short so the days

00:23:52.100 yes are they're very long especially you have multiple little children like i do um and i know

00:23:57.120 some people that have even more children than i do that are you know back to back and it's exhausting

00:24:02.140 the days are long but the years are short my daughter's going to be five in two months like

00:24:06.900 that's insane the years are short like when i think about that i'm like wow that went by really

00:24:11.480 really fast. Yeah. Yeah. Four times that she's going to be 20. And that's, that's just mind

00:24:17.060 boggling to us. Yeah. And then during the day we have dance parties to worship music. We do a lot

00:24:24.460 of those. It's really cute. Honor's now starting to, mom, I want dance. I want dance. It's really

00:24:30.200 cute. So yeah, we do that every day, just about every day. And then when Dale's done, is done

00:24:37.520 working for the day i try and make a clear distinction of deferring to him to help represent

00:24:44.180 the biblical rules our biblical rules to the children and so a lot of times we'll we'll flirt

00:24:52.480 in front of the kids we'll make it clear and evident that mom and dad love each other that

00:24:57.020 i'll purposefully ask you questions about scripture so that way you have an opportunity

00:25:04.140 You need to explain them to me in front of the kids

00:25:06.200 so they can see that walked out as an example.

00:25:10.840 Sometimes we'll even have to like purposefully schedule

00:25:14.020 and like write down that we need to have time

00:25:16.940 to like cuddle on the couch and like sit with each other

00:25:19.420 because I'm not naturally a super physically affectionate,

00:25:23.340 lovey-dovey, like physical touch is not one of my love languages.

00:25:26.880 So it doesn't just naturally come to me,

00:25:28.940 but I want our kids to remember that like mom and dad loved each other

00:25:32.720 and so we'll do that we'll just go sit on the couch and have the kids sit on the floor do

00:25:37.820 blanket time and play with a puzzle or a game and yeah they can see mom and dad loving each other

00:25:44.580 and and generally that means dad smacking mom's butt but hey um but it's it's a it's a fun easy

00:25:55.180 way to again reinforce the love that you guys have for each other in front of your children 0.94

00:25:59.900 and um and then yeah throughout the month or the week um some weeks i'll meet one-on-one with

00:26:06.640 another woman in our home fellowship and then a couple times a month i'm generally gathering with

00:26:13.180 like a group of women to um have a bible study or be come prepared to be taught something

00:26:22.280 um yeah yeah i'm not the only person that is pouring into her life i'm probably i'm the main

00:26:28.920 person. Um, but she, yeah. And she doesn't, I'm not the one that's only bearing her burdens. She

00:26:35.240 also has other women who are bearing burdens with her and that, you know, I seen so many couples

00:26:40.540 fall apart because they are the only people to bear the burdens of each other. There is no church

00:26:48.240 element and God designed the church for that specific reason. Uh, there's a hundred one

00:26:53.000 another's in the scriptures. And if the wife only can bear the burdens of the husband, the husband 0.96

00:26:59.100 can only bear the burdens of the wife, eventually it weighs them down. They need those extramarital 0.98

00:27:04.200 relationships with other people of the same sex, meaning that, you know, men with men and women

00:27:09.280 with women, that they can just share those burdens together. On your point, I wanted to catch, you

00:27:16.740 know, there's a quote that I say often is, you know, the relationship with your spouse might be

00:27:22.400 the only marriage book that your children ever read. Make sure it's not fiction, um, or make

00:27:27.680 sure it's not a horror story, you know? Um, and so, you know, that's, that's a big representation

00:27:34.060 is, yeah, just your kids are watching you. Um, and, and you are developing their faith.

00:27:39.560 Is mom and dad a hypocrite? Are they hypocrites? You know? Um, yeah. Are we actually, do we say 0.99

00:27:46.420 one thing and live out our life another way or is what we, are we practicing what we preach?

00:27:52.160 Yeah. And they can evaluate that even now. And so a couple of things I want to clarify

00:27:58.840 is that we don't want to create wholly irrelevant children, meaning that you're like so separate

00:28:07.240 that you're irrelevant. Like you're not of the world and you're not in it either.

00:28:13.360 You know, they don't know how to relate with people. We've seen this. I mean,

00:28:16.440 the I guess the homeschooling children of like the 90s, you know, in terms of lots of this is a

00:28:23.620 I would say, I guess, a fear for people to homeschool their children is that they won't

00:28:28.220 have any social skills or whatever. Yeah, that's almost always the first question. Like, so what

00:28:32.480 do you do about social socialization? Yeah. And so I go, we are absolutely working hard to make

00:28:38.860 sure that our kids, you know, understand logic, understand reason, understand, you know, the

00:28:44.860 philosophy behind their faith understand how to defend their faith understand the uh you know a

00:28:50.260 proper worldview understand what's going on in culture understand good and evil right and wrong

00:28:54.920 and and it's it is a lot of work um but we have to remember that satan's playing for keeps for

00:29:01.300 your children's hearts and it's not in the teen years it's in the toddler years in terms of you

00:29:05.860 watch they're they're sinful little beings from the second they come out of the womb yeah yeah

00:29:11.360 it is it's absolutely just all of a sudden they're manipulating you um and and so um we we are very

00:29:20.020 intentional about that and i think that's important to note i'm going to share my routine um and it's

00:29:28.000 pretty simple um it doesn't take much to lead your family spiritually i think that there's just this

00:29:34.140 people don't know what that means men don't know what that means i don't think women know what that

00:29:38.240 means? You know, like, what does it mean to be the spiritual leader of your home? Um, I'm going to

00:29:43.540 make it really practical for you guys. And also, I also am going to just say, just start, just like,

00:29:49.940 just start something. Yeah. Do something. Um, and so I really have five things that I do

00:29:55.980 that are, that, that keep everything functioning. And if you just do these five things and make it

00:30:02.380 as logically and practically as you want, put them on your calendar. I don't care. It doesn't

00:30:06.540 have to be emotional in the beginning. And this is currently for our season of life. This can

00:30:11.080 change five to 10 years or even sooner. It can change from now. This is just currently what we

00:30:17.440 are doing in our season of life with three young children. Totally. Good clarification point right

00:30:22.780 there. So the first thing is that make sure you got 15 to 30 minutes on your own with the Lord

00:30:29.140 every day in the morning. You know, five to six days a week, five to seven days a week. I mean,

00:30:35.340 you might have church on certain days. But if you can do it every day, do it every day. Don't beat

00:30:38.800 yourself up if you miss a day. I do this in the morning. I'll spend 15, 20 minutes. And I try to

00:30:46.540 read through like an entire book of the Bible, like a New Testament book. I try to just go like

00:30:51.300 this morning I read through the second half of 1 John. And I just pondered, I did some little

00:30:57.500 bit of research on a couple of scriptures. And sometimes I might read like all of Galatians or

00:31:02.620 you know, I'll read Ephesians or Titus or whatever it might be. But, um, and then there's times where,

00:31:08.180 you know, like Veronica's still going through the Bible. I read the Bible cover to cover last year

00:31:11.840 and it might just be that I'm just doing my daily reading. Um, and if you can do it in front of your

00:31:18.680 family, um, and not on your phone. If you read your Bible on your phone, your kids are going to

00:31:24.480 confuse. Oh, dad was just on his phone all the time. Pull your Bible out. Let your kids see you

00:31:29.540 reading the Bible. That's a very easy thing to do. So that's step one, have the time by yourself.

00:31:36.340 Number two, start the day with family prayer. So in the morning, when you go out, if you can,

00:31:45.500 or when you get home from work, if you can't, because you depend on your work schedule,

00:31:49.760 pray with your family, gather everybody together and pray. Just, and you can lead it out. You can

00:31:55.780 let your kids join. You can let your wife join. Whatever you want to do, it's your family. 0.73

00:31:59.540 but it's super simple to start with daily prayer.

00:32:02.580 I do that in the morning during Bible time,

00:32:05.440 which I'll talk about here in a second.

00:32:08.660 Number three is morning Bible time.

00:32:14.700 It's so simple.

00:32:16.620 Read one chapter out of the Bible.

00:32:18.600 You can use your regular ESV or New King James version of your Bible,

00:32:22.680 or you can use a kid's Bible if you want to.

00:32:27.440 We do both.

00:32:28.180 um we don't do the like the super little kitty bibles but like we're okay with just reading kind

00:32:35.140 of the straight scripture through and just we'll go back and forth between regular esv bible or

00:32:42.500 new king james and yeah the kids the children's illustrated bible because i know i'll have people

00:32:47.620 writing me asking me the the one that we use is called the children's illustrated bible yeah

00:32:53.380 And so, yeah, we just go through those things.

00:32:58.280 And I read one section a day, and it takes me five to ten minutes.

00:33:03.620 And then we pray as a family.

00:33:06.660 And I started out, and then sometimes my daughter will pray,

00:33:10.220 sometimes Veronica will pray.

00:33:12.020 And it's a moment to just start the day with prayer.

00:33:14.980 Simple thing.

00:33:16.380 So we've done three steps so far.

00:33:17.700 You have some time by yourself, 15 to 30 minutes.

00:33:20.120 You start the day with prayer.

00:33:21.520 You do Bible time with your kids.

00:33:24.080 And again, if you can't do it in the morning, do it at night.

00:33:26.460 And if your kids are older, I know of some families that, yeah, they do this in the morning as well with their older kids.

00:33:32.180 But I know some families that do it in the evening.

00:33:34.180 So they'll have dinner.

00:33:35.100 And then after dinner, they'll all gather in the living room.

00:33:37.880 They'll sit, talk, pray, and have Bible time with the older kids as a family.

00:33:43.340 Yeah.

00:33:43.600 So whatever works for your schedule.

00:33:45.920 Just do that.

00:33:46.520 And then number four is have one conversation with your wife per day about God. 0.52

00:33:54.340 Just ping her.

00:33:55.380 Just say, hey, what's going on?

00:33:58.120 How are you feeling today?

00:33:59.060 Have you prayed today?

00:34:00.180 Hey, what did you read today?

00:34:01.540 Hey, what are you learning?

00:34:02.700 Do you have a hard day?

00:34:03.940 What's the Lord doing in your heart?

00:34:05.600 Hey, I read something about this today.

00:34:07.520 I wanted to share it with you.

00:34:08.780 Like whatever it is, bring God up in your house once a day with your wife. 0.50

00:34:13.740 That's it.

00:34:14.240 I don't care if you need to put a reminder in your phone.

00:34:16.520 to ping you when you get home.

00:34:19.300 You can do that.

00:34:19.940 Like the geo reminders, do it.

00:34:22.420 And just again, guys are super practical, super logical.

00:34:25.820 Make it super practical and super logical.

00:34:29.020 By doing, we understand.

00:34:30.960 And so the more you do it,

00:34:31.780 the more you understand why you do it

00:34:32.840 and the more you'll want to do it.

00:34:35.860 And I would also, on top of that number four there,

00:34:39.220 I would say check in with her on a weekly basis

00:34:42.280 just to go, hey, how you doing?

00:34:44.960 like spiritually speaking how you doing and um if your wife is constantly breaking down

00:34:52.440 it's because you've gone too long without asking her those questions you you want a wife that

00:34:59.340 doesn't break down unless you're in crazy trials like we are but i mean in general life

00:35:04.600 if you're you you want a wife that's not breaking down because she's been neglected

00:35:12.060 you want to catch those things early and the way you catch those things is hey how you doing

00:35:17.640 once a week number five and I think this is a killer practical tip men put your kids to bed

00:35:27.500 okay you do the morning if you could do the morning with them and then put them to bed man

00:35:31.260 that is like framing the day for your kids they're going to always remember that dad spent some time

00:35:36.500 with us in the morning and he put us to bed at night and I was with him all day in the middle

00:35:41.020 And Veronica was with them all day in the middle.

00:35:44.960 And so I put our kids to bed.

00:35:47.660 It's a sandwich.

00:35:48.540 It's a sandwich, yeah.

00:35:49.420 The dad's sandwich.

00:35:50.480 Yeah, exactly.

00:35:51.440 And I asked my kids, so I get them to bed.

00:35:56.180 I brush their teeth, you know, rub their back, sing a little song with them.

00:35:59.960 And then I asked them a question generally every night.

00:36:05.820 I asked them, what's the most important thing we can ever do?

00:36:09.180 and Veronica what do they say follow God's word follow God's word they answer back okay my two

00:36:15.560 year old and my four-year-old almost five-year-old um answer back follow God's word and and I go where

00:36:22.600 do you find God's word and they say the Bible the Bible and they're gonna memorize that they're

00:36:28.760 gonna know that forever it's the most important thing you ever do you can follow God's word

00:36:31.880 and before we've done that there was a season where we were just teaching

00:36:36.200 this is mostly aria specifically because honor was much younger but we were teaching her the

00:36:40.480 10 commandments so every night we would go over the 10 commandments yeah what's first commandment

00:36:44.680 what's the second commandment yeah no other gods no idols yeah and then we'd start doing them in

00:36:48.960 order and so for a long time she knew all 10 command she knows them as she probably just

00:36:53.180 doesn't know them in order anymore because it's been a while and she was like three

00:36:55.640 like knowing the 10 commandments at three years old and the reason you teach your kids the 10

00:37:00.220 commandments is that eventually they will realize that they cannot keep them and will recognize

00:37:08.000 that they're in need of a savior. And so we do that. It's important to teach your kids the 10

00:37:13.120 commandments. The other thing, men, I want you to listen up real quick, that I do that was told to

00:37:19.520 me, I think by David and Jason Benham, awesome guys that I were friends with. They said, hey,

00:37:28.740 what's your family statement? Like, what do you do? Like, what do you teach your kids? You know,

00:37:34.080 they have a saying for their kids, you know, Benhams are this, you know, it could be Smiths

00:37:39.440 or that, you know, what are partridges? What do partridges do? And I started this phrase with the

00:37:45.340 kids and they know it. I tell it to them often. I say, hey, what do partridges do? And they'd

00:37:51.000 answer, we follow God and we lead others. And that's our phrase. Come up with your phrase.

00:37:58.740 You can take our phrase if you want, but that's one other thing.

00:38:03.860 So there's five steps, time in the word by yourself, start the day with prayer, with

00:38:08.700 family prayer, Bible time with your kids at some point during the day, conversation about

00:38:12.740 God with your wife and keep checking in with her, and then put your kids to bed and do

00:38:16.100 some sort of routine.

00:38:17.140 You do these five things and you are checking off the box of spiritual leader in your home.

00:38:23.440 It's that easy.

00:38:24.740 now it's intentional and it takes work to get into the routine but it's so normal for us now

00:38:33.540 though it is normal yeah we don't second guess it or think it it's just it's we're so used to

00:38:39.380 doing it it's just part of our life it's what we do yeah and i'm telling you guys that that's it

00:38:43.300 right there for for the men if you can just start there man the lord will do so much in your home

00:38:49.060 and in your family. And then the other things that I'm doing, I am meeting with men one-on-one.

00:38:58.340 I have a men's meeting every Wednesday for the local guys at our church. We gather together,

00:39:03.380 and they bear my burdens. I bear their burdens. We talk. I have one-on-one meetings with other

00:39:10.640 men as well. And we are consistent in church too. It's an important part, men, to make sure

00:39:16.500 that your family is consistent, gathering with the saints, finding a good Bible-based church,

00:39:21.220 or establishing and planting a biblical house church. You can learn more about that at

00:39:25.880 relearnchurch.org. That's our other ministry. But we prioritize the meeting of the saints. It says

00:39:31.000 in Hebrews 10, 25, 24 and 25, not forsaking the gathering of yourselves together as is the manner

00:39:37.480 of some. Don't forsake the meeting of the saints. It is the place in which we get edified on a

00:39:43.120 weekly basis so that we can do the work of our ministry for the rest of the week. And that is

00:39:48.200 part of our routine. And I make sure that that happens. And we miss very little church. Maybe

00:39:54.480 two a year, maybe more if we're sick or we're out of town. But when we go out of town, we'll leave

00:40:02.100 like Monday and come back Saturday. So we're home for Sunday. Yeah, we try to prioritize our time

00:40:09.380 because we believe the Lord is doing something in church.

00:40:13.020 So that's our routine.

00:40:15.160 Hopefully that was helpful for you guys

00:40:17.260 and you guys can take something in it.

00:40:19.480 Again, I know we've talked about this before,

00:40:20.620 but we wanted to really drive it home for you

00:40:23.100 who have been listening to the show.

00:40:26.900 We have no questions today

00:40:28.220 because it's a little bit of a longer show.

00:40:30.220 But we do have a memory verse.

00:40:32.620 So I will read the memory verse to you for this week,

00:40:35.500 which I'm sure if you listen to our show,

00:40:37.700 you probably can already guess what it is.

00:40:39.060 yep second timothy 2 15 be diligent to present yourself approved to god a worker who does not

00:40:44.920 need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth i memorized this scripture about two years

00:40:49.860 ago and i use it all the time i generally have memorized just because i've heard you say it so

00:40:54.800 many times it's an important scripture for for people to read if you're especially teaching

00:40:59.000 other people i've never like intentionally tried to memorize it i just kind of know it just because

00:41:03.040 Yeah. So, so again, guys, if you feel led to support us in our ministry, we've never done

00:41:12.820 this before. We've never done a nonprofit. We've never had people donate to us. It is so foreign

00:41:19.120 to us, but we hope that the Lord is going to fulfill his work. And we know that God has more

00:41:27.000 to do in us than through us, but we would love to push forward and we could absolutely use the

00:41:35.260 funding for the Lord's work. So again, if you want to make a donation, you can go to relearnchurch.org

00:41:41.760 forward slash donate. All right, guys. That's it. We got to bring in an epic show next week.

00:41:50.300 I think we're going to tackle finally the conversation of biblical community and biblical

00:41:56.280 church. I've been, I've been hesitant to do this show because I want to put so much effort into it.

00:42:03.220 Well, then you guys can be praying for us this week.

00:42:06.160 Yeah. So yeah, we will, we'll bring that to you guys, Lord willing. And yeah,

00:42:12.480 thanks for joining us and we will see you guys next Wednesday.

00:42:16.260 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Ultimate Marriage. If you're homesick for a

00:42:20.320 stronger marriage, visit our website at ultimatemarriage.com and consider enrolling in our

00:42:24.420 one-year online marriage mentor program.

00:42:26.960 Also, if you're interested in learning more

00:42:28.380 about building a better marriage,

00:42:29.880 follow Veronica and I on social media

00:42:31.580 where each week we share tips, tricks,

00:42:33.480 and lessons on building a biblical marriage.

00:42:54.420 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - November 14, 2018

Ultimate Marriage #19： The Daily Routine That Keeps Our Family Close To God

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