The Sins We Hide: Brian Goins, Ed Uszynski, and Darrin Mabuni

Darrin: I want to find out: “What makes my wife tick?” What she loves; who she is; and a lot of times, she doesn’t even know herself. So, I need to ask a second or third question. I need to follow up—

Ed: —that’s so good.

Darrin: —because it’s so easy for her to say, “I’m good.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave: Alright, Day Two of Man’s Day at FamilyLife Today.

Brian: Wow.

Ed: Man’s Day.

Dave: I’ve got the three greatest men that I know in the country.

Ed: Wow! That’s exciting!

Darrin: Oh, wow!

Dave: We have Brian, Ed, and Darrin.

Brian: He is so pandering right now.

Ed: That is exciting to be part of that.

Darrin: I’ll take it!

Dave: I’m trying to get you guys to like me, you know?

Brian: Back in Dave’s Den.

Dave: Yesterday—I thought it was awesome—we talked about [how] Ed and I are “ones” on the scale of 1-10 in our prayer life with our wives.

Ed: Groveling at the—

Brian: —yes, and we’re mediocre. So, mediocre won the day.

Ed: Mediocre won. [Laughter]

Darrin: So, we feel good about ourselves.

Brian: That’s right!

Ed: Mediocre won yesterday.

Ann: Wait! Did you talk about prayer yesterday?!

Dave: Hey, what are you doing here? This is Man’s Day.

Brian: Who let you in? This is Man’s Day.

Dave: This is Man’s Day.

Ann: Ohhhhhhhh! This sounds interesting!

Dave: Seriously, how did you get in the building?

Ann: I just came in and sat down, like, “This looks like a good group of guys.”

Dave: Hey, before you leave—and you do have to leave—[Laughter] Right, she has to leave?

Brian: Yes.

Ed: She has to leave.

Dave: It’s us men only.

But we talked yesterday about “love and cherish” our wife, Ephesians 5:25. You’re a wife.

Ann: I am.

Dave: There are women listening; there are guys listening. What would you say is one of the best ways a husband can love his wife?

Ann: I think, automatically, as a woman, we say, “To serve our family, to love Jesus, and to lead spiritually.”

Dave: Really?

Ed: Does that mean we have to pray together? [Laughter]

Brian: Yes. [Laughter]

Ann: That was actually at the top of my head—

Ed: —everyone else.

Ann: —“Is that what you’re talking about?!” [Laughter]

Dave: That’s what we talked about yesterday.

Ann: I am going to leave so you can talk more!

Dave: But I said to these guys—and they all said the same thing—that when I pray with you, you feel loved and cherished.

Ann: Absolutely; I feel like we’re a team.

Dave: What is it?

Brian: Yes, what is it about that? That you say, automatically, “We feel like a team.” Why do you feel like a team?

Ann: We’re on the same page; we’re fighting the same battle. It’s not us pulling our husband with us, like, “Hey, do you want to pray?” I think a lot of wives feel like it’s not a priority, and they’re always the ones initiating. That can feel like we’re not on the same team.

To fight the battle together, arm in arm—you guys are strong! We want to follow you; we want to be with you; we want to be side by side. And when you do that, I think our families feel safe. We feel safe, and loved, and cherished.

Ed: What else, Ann? What else goes into just leading—

Dave: Hey, she’s got to leave, Ed, you know? [Laughter]

Ed: No, one more. Leading spiritually—we talk about praying and taking the initiative to have those kinds of conversations; but what else makes you feel cherished when it comes to leading spiritually?

Brian: That’s a big word; those are big words.

Ed: What are some other words?

Ann: Yes, yes.

Ed: Paint on that.

Ann: Yes. I think what happens is, when Dave even has the conversation about, “Hey, this is what I read… What are you reading? What do you feel like God’s saying to you and teaching you?” For me, it’s the most important thing in my life; so, when he enters in, and we enter into that together, there’s something about—I don’t know, guys—I just feel loved; I feel like you care for us.

It is almost like our families are in this bubble. When Dave enters in—and some of you will disagree, as a listener—I feel like there’s a power source that walked in, and a companion, and a warrior [who] walked in that helps me to fight the battle. It energizes me. “Yes! I’m not alone! He’s in here battling stronger than I am,” and “I want to be on his team.” I’ve always felt like that with Dave: “I want to be on your team, because you’re going somewhere. Don’t leave me behind, and don’t disengage; because I think we can do this together really well.”

Ed: Nice.

Brian: Wow! Add that in.

Ed: Wow, “warrior.” I want to be a warrior!

Darrin: Pray with your wife, man! [Laughter] What are you doing? [Laughter] What are you doing, man? [Laughter]

Ann: Time out! Time out!

Dave: I just prayed with her a minute ago. [Laughter]

Darrin: Can I point one thing out? She didn’t talk about her—

Ed: —interesting.

Darrin: —she didn’t talk about me; she talked about our family: love God; love our family; “Lead us.”

Brian: That’s good, yes.

Darrin: And that’s where our wife comes from. When we talk about what we need, I talk about me. [Laughter]

Brian: Yes, that’s—[Laughter]

Darrin: —she didn’t say—

Ed: —“rub my feet.”

Darrin: No!

Brian: Or “pamper me.” She didn’t.

Darrin: And so, it struck me—even afterwards, talking about cherish—when you asked her, she’s already assuming, “We’re one.” But she didn’t talk about her needs. I think that’s something for me to continue to tune into: “My wife doesn’t ask about her needs,” and I need to continue to pursue her to know what she wants and know her in a way that I’m understanding the things that she likes and enjoys.

Ed: Good.

Darrin: Because they always put everybody else first.

Brian: Yes, when somebody asks me, “How can I serve you?” I typically think, “Well, there’s a lot of things you can do.” [Laughter] I think about the type of food I want; I think about the trips I want to go on.

But when you’re caring about the things that she cares about—which is family, God, moving forward together—I mean, those are—

Ed: —security.

Brian: Yes, they give security.

Dave: I mean, she said the word, “engage.” I think a lot of wives feel like we don’t engage, especially in their world—the kids, the home—again, I’m not saying that’s not our world, too, but that’s what they’re thinking about. It’s others’ centered.

I mean, I’ve watched Ann—I’m sure your wives are the same way—she’ll do anything for our kids (and now, for our grandkids).It doesn’t matter about her needs; they don’t matter. It doesn’t matter about my needs. [Laughter] We’ve had this discussion—"They’re more important than I am.” And that’s been hard. But she’ll lay her life down. And often, I’m not thinking the same way. When I engage and join her—like she says, as a partner—they feel loved. They’re like, “You’re with me; you’re in this!” It isn’t just about you and your needs.

Brian: I think asking good questions helps a wife feel cherished, too. When you think about even finding out some of those things—I think some guys are probably like, “I don’t even know: ‘What does she most care about?’ ‘What does she most need?’” It’s like, “Just ask! Just say, ‘What’s the most stressful part of your day?’”

Darrin: All their lives—I think, a lot of times, what I’m hearing from my wife is—it’s been about everybody else, and they’ve been trained, or really enculturated, in this idea of: “Yes, I’m here for everyone else.” That’s part of who they are, which is one thing that is so appealing. But I want to find out: “What makes my wife tick?” What she loves; who she is; and a lot of times, she doesn’t even know herself. So, I need to ask a second or third question. I need to follow up—

Ed: —that’s so good.

Darrin: —because it’s so easy for her to go, “I’m good.”

Ed: Yes, yes. “Tell me about “good’,” right?

Darrin: Exactly!

Ed: “Put some more words to that.”

Isn’t it something, when you do that, you maybe aren’t really feeling it, but as she is telling you more, you realize, “I’m the only person in the world who can play husband to this woman. I am her husband.” She’s trusting me, now, with her heart [and] her mind.

When I’m at my best, I see that as a stewardship, you know? I see that as something I need to cherish. I need to put weight to this. Again, it causes me then not to be sloppy or to slap an answer onto it; but again, “Lord, what do I need to do with this right now? Give me patience. Is there some advice? Is there some way I can make her load lighter in this?” or “Do I need to ask the next right question?”

Brian: In order for me to cherish my wife well, she needs to know that it’s okay to interrupt whatever my agenda is.

Ed: And her answer might cost you something.

Brian: It will cost me something. Whatever my agenda is, it’s going to cost me a little bit more in that moment just to go to— Because “Tell me more;” that’s going to open some doors [or] some drawers that I don’t know that I want to be into.

I heard somebody say: “The definition of love is ‘focus’.”

Darrin: Interesting.

Brian: When we actually focus, and when our wife knows that [she’s] the object of that focus, she feels cherished. When they just feel like: “Oh, you’re just checking off a list or asking a rudimentary question,” they don’t feel that love. We can do it too easily as husband and wife: just [get] back to our schedules, because we’re both busy.

Dave: Yes.

Hey, I want to ask you this—and this is a different direction I think we’re going to go; but when Ann was in here, and she said, “I just love it when you pray with me,” here’s just what hit me: “Why don’t we?” Besides [what] we talked yesterday: “It’s fearful,” “It’s pretty intimate,” “We’re busy,” or whatever. Here’s one of the things that hit me: “I think sometimes we don’t pray with our wife”—maybe, I’m just talking personally—"because I’m struggling with some sin in my life.”

So, when Ann said, “I would just love it if you would pray with me every day,” I thought, “There have been times in my life”—where I’ve struggled with porn, or I’ve struggled with some sin that’s secret—"and so, to pray with her, I can do it because I’m supposed to, but it’s not an overflow [of my relationship with Jesus].” Let’s talk about that a little bit.

I just brought up a topic that a lot of men do struggle with: porn. We all know. We talk to a lot of men; speak at men’s conferences. This is an issue for men. I think a lot of us, as men, want to cherish, and love, and lead in our home. And whether it’s porn or something else—that sin, that is sort of secret, and we don’t even have another guy in our life we’ve told—keeps us from loving her the way she wants to be loved, because we’re not willing to deal with that darkness in our life.

Ed: Yes, that’s interesting. I was just thinking of the word “darkness.” Sometimes, it’s porn, and sometimes, it’s harboring a bitterness; or just rehearsing a negative, bitter attitude towards people creates a darkness. What else creates darkness?

Brian: I was just thinking, for me, and we can certainly talk about my past with pornography; I’m sure we all have our story. But I think a bigger one for me was depression.

Ed: Talk about that.

Brian: Someone else defined depression as “anger turned inward.” It’s just a different way of dealing with anger.

I didn’t know how to deal with some of the darkness of my own heart, and some of the feelings of not feeling worthy or adequate; bitter about just the direction my life was going, and not knowing where to go with it. So, the last thing I wanted to do was pray about—pray with Jen about—whatever was going on, because I just felt so dark inside my heart.

Dave: Wow.

Ed: So, do you want to talk about, specifically, about porn; or should we talk about the darkness that’s there? What do we do with that darkness as far as treating ourselves as men? Because I think there are a lot of guys who, probably, are nodding their heads right now, if they’re listening, and just saying, “I feel that inside, and I’m not sure what to do with it” (whatever the darkness is).

Brian: Yes, yes.

Ed: What would you guys say? Like what do you do when you recognize that there’s something inside of you that is blocking you, not only from your relationship to your wife, but even to God? What do you do with that?

Dave: I mean, my first thought is I need a man—

Ed: —go ahead.

Dave: —or two—

Brian: —yes.

Dave: —that knows that darkness, knows that struggle. That I feel the freedom [to talk], but it takes courage to do it. I go to Darrin, or I go to somebody and say, “I need to tell somebody this.”

Brian: Get it out, yes.

Dave: I’m carrying it all by myself; I’m ashamed; I’m confused; I’m waking up discouraged or depressed. Or I’m struggling with porn or whatever it is. It’s—the last thing I want to do is tell somebody!

All: Yes.

Dave: We live this lie: “I’m going to get a grip on this,” “I’m going to handle this,” “I’m not even going to tell my wife. I’m just going to manage this.” Then, a week or two weeks later, you’re like, “I’m not winning.”

Maybe, it’s porn—so, you get three weeks or a month, and then you dive again. You’re like—if you’re going to be honest, you’re like—“I’m not winning, and nobody knows.”

All: Yes.

Dave: Until it comes into the light, you’re never winning.

Ed: That’s so true.

Dave: Because if I’m walking with Jesus, and it’s rich, I’m saying to my wife every day: “Hey, let’s pray about that.” It’s just like, “Hey, you got a concern? Let’s pray.” She’s like, “I’m loving you!”

Brian: Yes.

Dave: But if I’m not there, the last thing I want to do is pray with my wife, because I’ve got something that I’m carrying that nobody knows.

Brian: I was going to say, “Here’s the truth about the darkness: it’s going to come into the light one way or the other.”

Dave: Yes!

Brian: Either porn’s going to lead you to a place, or depression’s going to lead you to a place—or whatever you want to put in there—“I’m medicating through entertainment,” sloth, gluttony; go to the seven deadly sins.

All: Yes.

Brian: If I keep going down that road of darkness, it will cause me to do something that’s going to bring me into the light.

Dave: Yes.

Ed: It’s consequential.

Brian: The secret sins will always be brought into the light.

Darrin: Yes.

Brian: Or I could choose to follow Jesus, and expose the darkness to others, and find healing; right?

Ed: That’s good.

Brian: “When we confess our sins, one to another, God forgives us.” [paraphrase of

1 John 1:9-10]

Ed: Good.

Brian: James says if I confess my sins to each other, I get healing. [paraphrase of James 5:16]

Ed: There’s a healing.

Brian: God will forgive me, but healing doesn’t happen until I actually bring it into the light with other guys.

Ed: Isolation—if we want to be the kind of men [who] can love our wives the way we’re talking about, where she feels cherished—isolation is not an option, you know?

Dave: Right.

Ed: I think we just need to keep reminding ourselves of that, because we live in a cultural moment where isolation sort of is the norm for people, for men, for everybody.

Dave: Yes.

Ed: We have to choose to say, “On my watch, I’m going to initiate getting connected to some dudes.”

Darrin: That’s really good, because even putting this together, we think about men. I think about another guy, friends of mine, that I want to talk to. But why don’t I go there? Because it’s scary.

And we’re also taught in our culture that men are rugged individualists. I mean, I know that’s sounds somewhat dated, but it’s still very much separate. We’re isolated; we’re siloed. To do that, we’re crossing—we’re basically battling against what the world is continually bombarding us with: that we are self-sufficient.

We need to make that step. What I’ve found is that when I do take that step—and it takes a lot, but when I take that step—I find that, a lot of times, this guy is struggling with the same thing or similar things.

Brian: Yes.

Darrin: All of a sudden, I’m not alone, and he’s not alone. But it’s not easy.

Brian: Well, when we were joking yesterday about hotel rooms—I mean, just this week. I was in a hotel room. There was a moment where I was alone. Ed wasn’t there yet, and I switched over to a show—I wasn’t expecting to see anything, but it was there. I wasn’t planning on it. And in that moment, I could either keep watching it or change it.

Ed: And it grabbed you.

Brian: And it grabbed me. I kept watching that.

Dave: Yes.

Brian: The thing that I felt, even as I was watching it? I was [thinking], “I don’t want to confess this to Ed,” “I don’t want to confess this to anybody, because I should be farther along. Why am I falling back into something that I felt like I dealt with ten years ago?” or “…five years ago?” or whatever it might be.

I think, for a lot of us, we reach certain plateaus in our Christian life, where it’s like, “No, that struggle is behind me,” whatever the darkness might be.

Dave: Right, right.

Brian: So, the last thing I wanted to do was say, “Ed, I got caught last night. I lingered on a show that I shouldn’t have lingered on.”

Ed: How did you do that? I do think it’s worth talking about: “How do you do that?”

We’re driving in the car, and just kind out of nowhere, Brian brings it up and says, “I’ve just got to get this out,” right? Which I totally appreciate; I’ve been there myself.

Brian: Yes.

Ed: We started talking about it a little bit: “Is this a bigger pattern? Is this something that has been going on for a long time?” “No, it hasn’t been.” “Okay. Go and sin no more,” right? We didn’t need to really talk.

Dave: Yes.

Ed: I didn’t need to have a bunch of answers for him. “I get it!” because I know, inside myself, I’ve had my own moments that way. “Get it out into the light. Let’s keep going.”

Brian: And it lost its power in that moment. And then, you have somebody else [saying]—reminding you of the gospel, because that’s what Ed did.

Dave: Yes.

Brian: I don’t need to stay in my shame.

Darrin: Yes.

Brian: Then, there’s freedom; there’s—you’re clean.

Ed: Yes, you’re clean.

Brian: You’re clean. You can be clean again. It’s like the Christian life isn’t about getting cleaned up and staying cleaned up. It’s like, “I’m going to be dirty, again, tomorrow—"

Ed: —“in some kind of way.”

Brian: —“in some kind of way.”

Ed: Yes.

Dave: And in that moment, Jen’s not there, but her marriage just got better. She’s feeling loved, even though she’s not a part of this conversation.

Brian: Right.

Dave: You’re loving and cherishing her by telling Ed your struggle.

Tell me this, Brian: you talk about darkness, and you’ve talked to me about this concept called “playing hurt.” Is that stepping out of the darkness? I don’t know, exactly, what that means.

Brian: Yes; well, it’s from a book that I put out not too long ago; just the idea—it’s from Ephesians 5, when it talks about how Jesus loved—you know, “we’re to love our wife like Jesus loved the church.” When you think about how He loved the church, He loved it sacrificially; He died for it. There’s a lot of pain involved, you know? Even the suffering of Jesus—the pathos, the passion of Jesus—comes from the word, “suffering,” from “pain.”

As a guy, I love stories of other men who have played through pain, whether we’re talking about the old stories like Kirk Gibson, you know?

Dave: Yes.

Brian: In the World Series, where he’s playing against the Athletics. He hadn’t played the whole game, and he comes up to pinch hit at the last inning.

Dave: He limps up.

Brian: Yes, limps us.

Ed: He could barely walk.

Brian: He had stomach flu; he had hurt his leg before. You guys know the story. He goes down 0-2 against Eckersley. Eckersley throws this—he, somehow, battles back to get back to 3-2, full count—winning run is on the first base.

Eckersley throws the slider, and Gibson just—all upper-body strength; he’s got no leg strength, nothing—launches it into the cheap seats. He starts pumping his arm, back and forth—every guy who hits a double in softball, now, does that—[Laughter]—it’s like, “Please, just stop.”

Ed: My hands are all sweating right now, just listening to you tell the story. [Laughter]

Brian: It’s like—I wasn’t even a baseball fan when I saw that. My dad was a Dodgers fan. I remember us just jumping up and down. I’m like crying. I think about Jordan with the stomach flu; I think about Kerri Strug and the Olympics, when she lands on one foot, because the team was more important than the pain.

Ed: Playing hurt.

Brian: I think about guys who have played through pain. I [think]: “I want that moment,” “I would love to have that moment.” I’m willing to do that in a moment on the battlefield—in any kind of sports arena; in the business community; I’m willing to play through my pain.

But the minute that Jen hurts me, my ego (or whatever it might be)—I go for the bench. That’s when God is going, “No, I need you to get in the game.”

Ed: Wow.

Brian: One of the areas we can go to the bench, for guys, is with the darkness.

All: Yes.

Dave: —to escape.

Brian: When I feel the darkness, I flee.

Ed: —medicate.

Brian: We talked about fight or flee. I flee; I medicate, which is easy to do with devices. You can get lost in a Netflix^® show [and] feel good for a little bit.

Dave: Yes.

Brian: But the darkness is still there.

Ed: Yes.

Brian: You haven’t dealt with it. That’s when God [says], “I need you off the bench here.” “Off the bench” means, “Maybe I need to go confess my thoughts to another guy,” “Maybe I need to confess something to Jen,” “Maybe I need to engage in a conflict that I’ve been avoiding for a long time.”

Ed: “Maybe I need to change.”

Brian: Maybe you need to change.

Ed: In some kind of way that I don’t feel comfortable with. There’s a story I’ve been telling for years: early on, in our marriage, Amy and I were having what I thought was a conversation. It turned out, she was crying—just sitting on the other side of the room, she was crying. I was like, “What are you crying about?” She said, “You’re yelling at me.” I said, “Amy, I’m not yelling at you.” I really didn’t feel like I was, at all. I wasn’t upset. I don’t even remember what we were talking about. [I said], “I’m not yelling.”

She kept pushing back, saying that I was. And then, I started to raise my voice more, right? [Laughter]

All: “I’m not yelling!” [Laughter]

Ed: Now, I’m upset! Now, I’m upset, because I feel like she’s accusing me. I’m like, “This is just how I am. this is how my family is. Your family is super quiet, and you’re more passive with each other. This is what you signed up for.”

Dave: “This is it, baby.” [Laughter]

Brian: “This is what you said, ‘I do,’ to.”

Ed: She’s crying; I’m trying to make my point.

Then my little four- or five-year-old son, at the time, who never says a word—comes around the corner, and he says, “Daddy, you’re scaring the kids, and you’re making Mom cry.” I turned around, and I yelled something at him: “Get out of here.” Again, I was kind of losing it at that point. I stormed out of the room.

I remember, later that night, just rehearsing to myself—kind of between me and God: “God, this is wrong. This is unjust. I don’t know how I’m going to do this. This really is just how I am.” It was like I heard the Spirit of God say, “This is how you are, and how you are scares the kids and makes your wife cry. So, how you are needs to change, actually, if you want to be moving closer to her and for her to trust you; if you want your kids not to—,” you know? I was very convicted.

I’ve been talking about it for years. There have been a bunch of little moments like that, where it’s like, “Ah, You brought us together so that I will become something different than what I would be and was becoming on my own.” Like that’s built—

Brian: —that’s so good.

Ed: —so we’re talking about cherishing, right? If I’m going to cherish her, I have to be open and willing to change the narrative that I’ve been telling myself about myself: “This is just how I am. This is always who I have been.” “Okay. Well, some of that’s going to need to change now.”

Brian: Yes.

Ed: “Still be true to who you are at your core, but how that manifests itself is going to need to change.”

Darrin: Yes.

Dave: Dude, I’m over here in tears.

Brian: Yes.

Dave: I’ve never heard that story, Ed. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of your life. I mean, seeing your little boy—who I know, now, as a man—

Ed: It messed with me.

Dave: Yes.

Ed: It did. That’s why I keep telling it, because it stuck to me. I just remember—

Brian: “Out of the mouths of babes.”

Ed: Yes.

Brian: It’s like God speaks in such a powerful way.

Dave and Ed: Yes.

Brian: I think, a lot of times, God speaks through our wives.

Dave: Yes.

Brian: We’re just not listening, because we’re so offended. The “tell me more” thing that you’re talking about—one of the best times you can use “tell me more” is when you’re most offended and most irritated. You’re hurt, and you say, “The way I play right now is to go, ‘I’m mad, and I’m angry. Tell me more,” rather than just react—

Ed: Okay; yes.

Brian: “Why are you crying right now?”

Ed: Pride’s hurt. We’re all crying a little bit right now.

Darrin: Yes.

Brian: That’s right.

Darrin: Wow.

Dave: I would end with this, and we all know this: the only way we’re going to change is Jesus.

Brian: Yes.

Dave: You can’t! Ed, you can’t change yourself.

Darrin: Amen.

Brian: No.

Dave: You’ve tried; I’ve tried. I’m picturing men all around the country, literally hearing that story, and hearing what we’ve been talking about. I’m going to encourage you: “Turn off the radio; turn off the podcast. Get on your knees—whether it’s in your bedroom, in a closet, in your kitchen, in your car—get on your knees right now. The best thing you can do for your wife; best thing you can do for your kids is surrender to Jesus.”

I’m literally picturing men saying, “Okay, this my move. All the stuff they talked about; this is what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to start here, and then, I can take the steps that cherish [my] wife.” I’m telling you: start there, right here, right now.

Shelby: I’m Shelby Abbott. You’ve been listening to Dave Wilson with Brian Goins, Ed Uszynski, and Darrin Mabuni on FamilyLife Today.

I’ve got a question about your small groups: could your small group use something a little bit more inspired? I mean, if you’re looking for a study that’s connecting and thought-provoking, with materials and discussions that really help everybody in the group grow closer to God and closer to one another, the Art of Marriage is for you. We’re talking about vulnerable, relatable stories, spoken word poetry, man-on-the-street interviews, and helpful and hopeful input from marriage experts. It’s the all-new Art of Marriage. You can go to the Show Notes or ArtofMarriage.com to learn more and grab your leader kit today. We’re really excited to share the all-new Art of Marriage with you and hear how God is using it in your life.

Okay, I want to encourage you, right now, as soon as we’re done, to do what Dave said: get on your knees and pray for your wife, pray for your kids, pray for your marriage; pray that God would use you and help you to walk with Him in ways that overflow into every other part of your life. Because it starts with Him and moves out into every other direction afterward, not the other way around.

Now, tomorrow, the men are going to be back again and talk about modeling parenting behaviors and exposing children to other positive influences besides just you and your wife. That’s tomorrow. We hope you’ll join us.

On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We’ll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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