Marrying My Spouse Was a Mistake - 3 Steps to Renewal - 210

Is your marriage feeling like more of a struggle than a blessing? In this candid and transformative episode, Daniel and Michelle Moore share their personal journey of turning a troubled relationship into a thriving partnership. Drawing from their experience, they introduce the Law of Pursuit and unpack timeless biblical principles from Genesis 2 to reignite love and respect in any marriage.

Discover how moments of emotional distance and disillusionment can become opportunities for deeper connection and growth. Learn practical steps to stop taking your relationship for granted and start building a strong, healthy foundation. Whether you’re a newlywed or a seasoned couple, these three actionable steps will empower you to pursue your partner daily, communicate openly, and maintain spiritual alignment in your marriage.

Don’t let complacency rob your relationship of its potential. Strengthening your bond requires work, dedication, and an unwavering commitment to keep God at the center. Through personal anecdotes, proven strategies, and heartfelt encouragement, Daniel and Michelle offer hope for couples navigating the ups and downs of married life. Watch now to discover how effort, faith, and intentionality can lead to a renewed love story.

✅ Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more relationship-saving tips!

Visit our website at www.connectingthegap.net for everything about our ministry!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Law of Pursuit in Marriage
• 10:32 The Importance of Daily Marriage Maintenance
• 15:37 Marriage Requires Continuous Work and Commitment
• 29:49 Renewing Passion in Marriage
• 42:18 Restoring Love Through Continuous Work
• 49:58 Promoting Podcasts Through Various Platforms

Transcript

Daniel Moore: 0:00

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night. S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y Night. We love our jobs and whatever, but when it's deep down inside, when you think about it, you know we all wish that we could just stay home and retire to a point and just do what we want. We always have that thought in our mind. But when you look at marriage, when you think of it being work, you need to look at it in a positive type of work. The old song comes to my mind that we used to sing a lot at another church, that we used to go to Count your Blessing.

Michelle Moore: 0:34

Yeah.

Aria: 0:40

And to me, you should look at your marriage as a blessing, because that's what it is. Yeah, count your blessings.

Daniel Moore: 0:42

Name them one by one.

Aria: 0:43

Yeah, yeah, count your blessings, name them one by one.

Daniel Moore: 0:44

Yeah, when you think about that that way, as a blessing from God, which it truly is, god has blessed you with this person, this special person that he's created for you, and put you two together for a reason that gives you a whole new purpose in life. For one thing, you can work for God by yourself and you can do what God's plan is and do the winning other souls, evangelizing, being an example, whatever it may be. But look how much more work you can do if you have two people together that are focused on the same thing.

Daniel Moore: 1:16

On this week's episode of Connecting the Gap, we start off the next section of our study on the four laws of love, the law of pursuit. Are you working at your marriage? We're going to talk more about that this week. On Connecting the Gap, I'm Daniel Moore, your host for this podcast. Thank you guys for joining us this week my wife Michelle sitting in here with me as we've been going through the four laws of love over this last couple of months or so here now and I want to thank you guys for coming back for another episode this week.

Daniel Moore: 2:21

If you're not familiar with our show, you can check out our website at wwwconnectingthegapnet, and all of our platforms are there our YouTube and our Rumble links. We're also on the Christian Podcasting app, Edify. If you have smart devices such as the Echo Dot, the Google Home Hub, you can listen to us on those as well, and so you might want to check that out. That might be a little easier way for you to listen to our episodes each week. You can also visit us on social at facebookcom, forward slash, ctgaponline. If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe. Feel free to leave a comment on our platforms. Give us a thumbs up or a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Those are very important and we'd be eternally grateful to you for doing that. If you'll take time to do it, we share with you each week here on the podcast. If you'll take time to do it, we share with you each week here on the podcast, and that's just a favor. We ask in return if you would give us a review or a comment here and there and join in on the conversation here as we drop these episodes each week. Well, this week we are starting into a new section of our series on the Four Laws of Love. We just finished up the Law of Priority. Last week we was talking about romance as we wrapped up the end of that section. This week we're starting off on a brand new section of this series and it's the Law of Pursuit, and that's what we're going to be talking about this week.

Daniel Moore: 3:36

On Connecting the Gap, Many counselors will tell you that when they sit in their office with an unhappy couple in front of them, it's very common for one or both of them to say something like this you know, I just don't love him or her anymore. I guess we must have made a mistake when we got married. Well, when we read those words, Michelle and I can sympathize with that, because there was a time in our marriage when the crisis was at its worst and we both had that thought cross our mind in our situation, Although today it's hard for both of us to even comprehend how we felt that way then, because we both deeply respect each other now and we are so much more in love. So the days that we were saying, well, I think we made a mistake, it is kind of hard for me. I can remember those times back then, when it was rough.

Daniel Moore: 4:34

But as I look at it now, I do think it is kind of hard for me to really remember exactly how I felt then, because now I wouldn't even think that we made a mistake. You know, I know we didn't make a mistake. However, both of us can remember what it was like to experience the emotional numbness and disillusionment that led us to that point where those words and thoughts even became a reality for us in our relationship. We also, at this point, remember all the steps and changes that we had to make to remedy the situation and to solve those issues. Those same steps taught us how to preserve strong and healthy feelings for each other, as well as how to keep the romantic edge on our relationship. Well, to understand how you can stay deeply and romantically in love for the rest of your married life or, for some, how to restore your marriage back to what it once was, we again need to look back at the scripture that we've been teaching out of already at this point, from the very beginning, and that was Genesis 2. As we have discussed, this passage of scripture holds the secret of how the laws of love are universal, and they set the foundational laws of marriage into effect. After God commanded us to leave or to relinquish or loosen the bonds of our parents, which at that point set the proper priorities in marriage, he said these words a man shall cleave unto his wife. That's Genesis 2.24.

Daniel Moore: 6:00

Well, just as it is important to understand the literal meaning of the Hebrew word translated leave, it is also necessary to understand the literal meaning of the Hebrew word translated cleave. Now, when I first see that word, the immediate thing that comes to my mind is a meat cleaver chopping something into two pieces. And I think most English speaking people who first read that word cleave probably think that. And as we say that, you might be reading that word and thinking, yep, that fits the description of my marriage right now. You know, you can just sit there watching just the chopper sitting there just chopping your marriage up into pieces. Well, fortunately for all of us, in Hebrew the word translated as cleave in the context of a marriage relationship does not mean cut or separate.

Daniel Moore: 6:48

The Hebrew word used is debak, which conveys the idea of pursuing with great energy and clinging to something zealously. So when God commanded man to cleave to his wife, he was instructing him to passionately pursue and energetically cling to his wife for the rest of their lives. This concept goes beyond mere physical unity and encompasses a deep emotional and spiritual connection. It implies a devoted commitment to one's spouse, a steadfast loyalty and an unwavering dedication to the relationship. A steadfast loyalty and an unwavering dedication to the relationship. By cleaving to his wife, a man is called to actively love, cherish and prioritize her above all else. God has always shown us the key to staying in love. It's that dirty word called work, that four-letter word that none of us like to talk about. Sometimes.

Daniel Moore: 7:44

A marriage only works when both partners work at it. The downfall of a marriage isn't due to work itself, but rather the absence of it. When we take each other for granted and coast through life relying on past memories, we generate negative feelings and energy that leads marriages to regress, and then, of course, they start slipping backwards. When a couple is advised to invest effort and work on their marriage for it to thrive, it confronts a core romantic misconception. Many of us hold the belief, whether explicitly or implicitly, that marrying the right person should eliminate the need to actively work on the relationship to sustain love. It should simply unfold effortlessly and just happen. We think that, day after day, we should just be able to wake up and look at our spouse and say hallelujah. So we long to search out and find that perfect Mr or Mrs Right to ride off with into the sunset and happily live after after After all, isn't that the way it is in the movies?

Daniel Moore: 8:52

Well, many of us must acknowledge the influence of a misguided and misleading perspective on love and marriage. The flawed ideologies of the world have undated us so much with notions of how to make love and be in love. World having undated us so much with notions of how to make love and be in love. However, have you observed the discontent and failure evident in the personal relationships of those who glamorize and promote these deceptive notions of love? Hollywood, where most of the romantic deception begins, today, has the worst record for being married and in love and staying that way. If anyone has the authority to be an example of what true love really is, it certainly isn't them.

Daniel Moore: 9:30

When people say they are out of love or don't want to continue with their marriage, the question must be asked do you resent having to work at your relationship with your spouse? After a moment of denial, most people will say something like yeah, well, I'm sure I haven't been doing as well as I should have for some time. But now I don't even feel like trying Well to help understand where marriages break down. Think back to the first date with your spouse. How hard did you work at impressing them? How hard did you try to watch what you said around them? How much did you primp in front of the mirror to impress them? How much energy did you exert trying to serve and please them? You're probably like Michelle and I and literally broke your necks trying to please each other on those first dates. Just asking these questions and answering them proves the point. It wasn't just your chemistry that brought you together and caused the relationship to be so satisfying. It also took a lot of work. Yeah, we all know that.

Daniel Moore: 10:32

We all work hard at the relationship until we feel we have the relationship secure with the other person. When that security is realized in the relationship, we all have the tendency to back off a little bit and with the effort and start to take it for granted. That point marks the beginning of the end in the deep feelings that we had at the dating stage and the strong feelings of attraction that were very characteristic of the beginning of the relationship. Just because you live in the same house and share the kids and checkbook doesn't mean that you're going to have strong feelings for your partner or a strong relationship For the rest of your life.

Daniel Moore: 11:12

You will have to work hard at your marriage to make sure that it stays rewarding and healthy. When you stop working at it, it will stop working for you. Marriage can be likened to the muscles in your bodies Regularly exercising them strengthens and enhances our physical attractiveness. Conversely, neglecting to exercise by just lying around leads to weakness and unattractiveness. The more we remain inactive, the less inclined we are to engage in physical activity, resulting in further muscle weakening to engage in physical activity resulting in further muscle weakening Exercise is the key.

Daniel Moore: 11:54

So when I think about our marriage and what happened to it at that one point when it just fell apart, I can actually think back and I realize I wasn't working on it like I should have been and I think you know that you obviously you know you feel the same way and I think that I guess the question is is what are some things that can cause that to happen in a relationship? I guess I know with my myself I can see some of the things that I did to make myself not want to work for it and try hard with it. Do you feel like that whenever we both got married, do you feel like that you kind of expected the marriage just to happen and just to work out just because based on how we felt about each other while we were dating?

Aria: 12:40

Yep, I sure did. I didn't expect anything to actually go wrong, I mean because we were madly in love with each other. So how hard could it be?

Daniel Moore: 12:50

Yeah, so I think that if we go into the marriage with that kind of a mindset, it probably can create a door there for this type of thing to happen, because if you feel like you don't really have to work for it, then it's almost one of those things where it can almost catch up with you later, because you've got to be proactive all the time.

Daniel Moore: 13:13

But if you're not being proactive. You can be going along and everything seems to be going fine. Then all of a sudden one day you wake up and you're like what just happened? This just fell apart. How did this happen? Because this is not supposed to be this way. But I think if we look back a lot of times when that kind of thing happens, we can always see, as we backtrack, kind of see where it started. And I think that when it comes down to wanting to work on your relationship and wanting to work on your marriage, again, I think it comes back to your priority of how you feel about that relationship and how you feel about that spouse. It shows a lot for your feelings. If you're not willing to work for it, how do you really feel about that spouse at that moment? Right, right, I think that's one way that you can look at that.

Aria: 14:00

So, for let me ask you this when someone gets married, what is your advice for them?

Daniel Moore: 14:11

What is a couple of things that you would tell that the newlyweds From experience that we've been through, I would definitely say, of course, you know, being a praying couple is always super important. That's regardless. We always need to make sure we're a praying couple. But at the same time, I think that kind of how I look at our marriage at this point is I look at each day thinking, okay, what can I do to make sure my marriage doesn't go back to where it was. Now, obviously, the newlyweds aren't going to have that experience because hopefully they've been in love from the beginning and they're still in love as they get married, but they still need to look at it each day. You've got to do your marriage day by day.

Daniel Moore: 14:55

That's the best way to do it. And those newlyweds, whenever they start into this marital relationship, I think on the top of their mind it's not something you just think about every day, but at the same time it still needs to be there that what can I do today to make my marriage better for tomorrow? And what can I do today to make my marriage better or sustain over time? Because, especially you know most newlyweds obviously if it's your first marriage, a lot of people get married young.

Aria: 15:27

Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 15:27

So you're coming right out of your teenage years or whatever it may be, and if God's given you the opportunity to have a long life, you're going to be married a long time, yeah. And so there's a lot of hills and valleys that are going to take place through that whole relationship. And I think that as you go through all of that stuff now, looking back at what me and you've been through and seeing how we handled things and we did it right or did it wrong or whatever it may be we didn't constantly stay positive or proactive in our marriage. Regardless of our valleys, you're going to go through those. There's just no way around that.

Daniel Moore: 16:01

But even when you're in those valley moments, you need to be thinking, okay, what do I need to do to fix this? What can I do now to move this forward and get it back to that hilltop? And that's just a constant thing that you have to keep in mind. So, again, it comes back to working. You can't just go stagnant and just let your marriage happen. You can't just let it do its thing. You have to make sure that you're involved. You've got to be actively involved in keeping that on both sides. One spouse can't make the whole thing work.

Aria: 16:37

It's got to be both spouses having the same view of their marriage and the same vision, and mine, kind of similar, goes like that. It's one God is the center. Keep God at the center, no matter what. Two you have to communicate. You have to literally communicate because you are two people coming together who think they know each other but they really don't. And you're living in the same household every day You're learning things that that person does, that you don't like. And then three is to work on the marriage every day, treat every day a new day, and what?

Daniel Moore: 17:13

can you do better in your marriage for each other? Yeah, so exercise is definitely the key.

Daniel Moore: 17:17

Yeah, absolutely To make sure that you keep that strong relationship going, and that's the only way that that's going to work. So you know, no matter how disconnected you feel in your relationship that you're in today, if you're committed to working on it, you'll witness the resurrection of feelings and experiences that you may have thought were lost. It's important not to let fleeting emotions steer you towards misguided choices, even if negative feelings exist towards your spouse. As Michelle and I both said here, following God's directive to cleave will lead to a transformation in your emotions and your feelings. Now you may say, no, I don't think this is ever going to work, I'm just going to get a divorce and get on with my life.

Daniel Moore: 18:02

And unfortunately, michelle and I have heard that several times from different people and at one point in time we thought that way. We thought you know, we're just forget this, it's too much, I can't do this anymore, I'm done. And that probably happens more often than we all think, and you know those feelings are understandable. But we also, when we're in that situation, need to be made aware of something If you divorce, more than likely you're going to marry again. I mean, the statistics show that it's very, very high that when someone gets divorced in life, especially the younger they are, you're probably going to find another person and you're going to get remarried.

Aria: 18:38

Well, and I want to go. We should never, ever, ever bring divorce into the picture, right when you speak that those thoughts are there.

Daniel Moore: 18:50

Yeah, you're speaking destruction over your marriage from day one.

Aria: 18:54

I regret that in our marriage, that I even allowed some of that stuff, and I go back to think, okay, if I'm divorcing you know, I failed one marriage Now I'm going to fail another one, you know, and at that point I was done anyways. But still, as a Christian couple, divorce should never be brought up. You should be doing everything that you can, whether it's marriage counselor or whatever it may be, to keep that word out completely.

Daniel Moore: 19:25

Yeah, yeah. It should never be a topic brought up between a married couple. And as we think about this idea that you know we're going to get remarried, probably. So what will happen then is you're going to work hard and pursue that person, just like you did the first one, because you've already been through this once before. Once you're remarried, the excitement of the new relationship is going to carry on for a little while, just like it did before, but the day is going to come, just like it did in your previous marriage, that work and faithful commitment will be the fuel to keep that relationship alive. Just having emotions is not going to work. It's not fuel to keep that relationship alive. Just having emotions is not going to work. It's not going to keep that relationship together. Sooner or later, you're going to have to commit to work on a marriage if you're ever going to accomplish having a happy one.

Daniel Moore: 20:09

I mean that's just, there's no way around that, so why delay it?

Aria: 20:24

You know, don't put off until tomorrow what you can start doing today and start that progress to restore your current marriage. And why wouldn't you want to do that? Because you go to work every day. Yeah, you put in, you know, you put in an effort to work, you learn new things that work. So why wouldn't you do that in your marriage?

Daniel Moore: 20:30

Yeah, and that concept carries if you don't work at your job and you lose your job, that destroys your income, destroys your possibility of keeping your home and everything else. Well, it's the same concept with the marriage. You know, if you don't work at your marriage, you need to destroy that. That destroys your home, that destroys your relationship.

Aria: 20:48

That's what Satan wants.

Daniel Moore: 20:49

Yeah, that's exactly what's in his plan.

Daniel Moore: 20:53

That's right. So you know counselors. They'll tell you when they counsel people that have been in multiple marriages, the primary reason for the marriage failures is because they don't have a desire to work on them. That's one of the main reasons that's given to counselors when they deal with this type of a situation. When they first start to have issues in the marriage and the original feelings start to break down and fail, they just want to. They're just going to get a divorce. They're just going to. You know I'm done and they're out. It's over with.

Daniel Moore: 21:22

So instead of meeting the problems head on and trying to work on them, they run away from them, or so they thought. Instead, they were constantly ensuring that they would have continuous problems. The only way to get rid of a problem for good is to solve it, not to ignore it or divorce it. The story was told of a guy who had a friend that he hadn't seen in quite some time. One day the friend showed up, obviously way skinnier than he had been in a long time and very sharply dressed. The friend was taken aback by his appearance and he said to the friend wow, I'm impressed, you look great, you clean up pretty good. Well, in response to the friend. The friend said yes, my divorce was final a few months ago and I decided that if I'm going to get another woman, I better clean up my act. Well, the first thought that comes to mind in this scenario is it makes you wonder if his marriage would have failed if he had put as much effort into restoring it as he was putting into a future marriage. While he was married to his first wife, he had gotten to be just an average guy, but now that he was on the market again, all of a sudden he was willing to work at it again. Well, why is it that we will work so hard to try to impress a stranger but we choose not to work at all on the one that we vowed before God to love and cherish for the rest of our lives? That's really a question that kind of gets you deep when you really think about it. Because you did. When you walked down that aisle and your spouse came walking down and you took hands and you stood before that pastor and gave those vows. That was an eternal thing supposed to be Before God. That is something. Until you die, you state those words.

Daniel Moore: 23:09

Michelle, and I have stated those words and a lot of times. You know I can even look back in my own examples in my life, and I'm sure you can probably as well that we even in some ways decided not to work on things. We took those words for granted, that we said we obviously truly didn't mean them. You know, at one point in time we almost didn't mean them again when you and I said them, because it almost came to a point where we went down that road and ended up divorced. But yet it happens so often every day I mean all the time marriages are falling apart and people decide they're not going to work on it anymore and they start focusing on putting all their work and efforts into a whole brand new thing and repeating this process all over again.

Daniel Moore: 23:59

And so some of you, as we're talking about this, you may be thinking but you don't understand. I know it's wrong and I've been having an affair. I have never experienced such great love in all of my life. We get along so well. I've never felt this way about anyone. So this must be God's will for my life. After having experienced this relationship, I don't know if I could ever be satisfied with my spouse again. Well, if this describes your situation.

Daniel Moore: 24:27

You need to know, first of all, that affairs are wrong in God's sight and they are very destructive. They don't solve anyone's problems. They stir up a world of troubles and heartache for everybody that's involved. It does not matter what feelings. That is so right. Also, any relationship created in an affair is going to be on very shaky ground. I mean consider this very shaky ground. I mean consider this If that person that you are quote-unquote in love with right now was acquired in an affair, how high do you think the chances are that they will be faithful to you when the time comes in the marriage which is usually sooner rather than later that you must start working on things, what promises do you have that they're going to stick around, when they didn't even stick around in the last marriage to work on it when things got sticky? Sin never solves any problems. It simply breeds newer and bigger ones.

Daniel Moore: 25:26

And Michelle and I have been in situations where we've seen this even from the outside, where people have carried on affairs in their relationships and they would try to justify them and they would try to make excuses for why this marriage was so horrible and they're not supposed to be in it or whatever, and they started this new affair with somebody. And I know people that's been married more than twice and they have met people in affairs and then that person's had an affair on them. So there is a lot of truth to that, and I think a lot of people, when they get involved in an affair and they start carrying that on, they think that they're invincible. They think, well, we truly love each other. They know this. Our first marriages were different. You know that was a whole different situation. This is the real thing.

Daniel Moore: 26:17

But it's real easy to. Once you've had an affair, it's a little bit easier to fall back into that and do it again if you're not careful. I think it takes more work at that point not to have one if you've already had one before than if it's a first time. And I think that's human nature and Satan he likes to help us justify things or whatever. And so you have to be super careful with what you're doing, which, first of all, as it says biblically, affairs are wrong in God's sight to begin with, and that's not something that should ever happen. But if you do leave someone for somebody else and that person was okay with having an affair on their other spouse and you were okay having an affair on your spouse.

Daniel Moore: 27:05

It's one of those things where I think over time it's conditioning, because the more you do something, and even if it's wrong, the more that you do it and get by with it and it seems to come out okay on the other side for a while. It conditions you to think well, maybe the next time it's going to be even easier and you know, I can just go till I find the right one, you know, and that's just not going to happen. Sin never solves problems and that's something we have to stay away from. You got to have some dignity in yourself at some point and you have to have that relationship with God where it needs to be at some point. You've got to have a true relationship there and whenever you have that true relationship with God, then we work on things, we don't just let things go.

Daniel Moore: 27:49

So, no matter what state your marriage is in today, if you will start to work harder on it, even if your spouse chooses not to, you will start to eventually see a difference in your marriage and in the best case scenario, if both spouses choose to work on it, the result can be incredible. An example of this is Michelle and I. We both know that this is true because we lived out the process. Neither of us resents the work that we do for each other. We consider it a joy. I know that Michelle is going to meet my needs in the best prioritized way that she can, and she knows she can expect the same from me. That's the best way to live out your marriage and find that pure joy that it can bring.

Daniel Moore: 28:29

If you're planning to marry sooner, or just recently married, don't let your marriage slide into an apathetic slumber. You need to decide at this moment that the spouse you married was the right one for you and you need to work on that marriage to ensure it can be the best marriage that you could ever have. And you know, with Michelle and I, whenever we got to that point that we thought, you know, we just decide just to end it. Michelle, you know, was looking at filing for divorce. She was looking to move out. All that stuff was taking place. I think that that now has became a reckoning point for her and I, to the point where, as we go through our marriage now, because we did reconcile, we did put the work into it and we made sure that we got back to where we were before, and even better at this point.

Daniel Moore: 29:18

That's a point now that we can look back now and we know, sure, that we got back to where we were before, and even better at this point. That's a point now that we can look back now and we know that we don't ever want to go back there.

Aria: 29:25

No.

Daniel Moore: 29:25

That's something that we want to stay completely away from, and so every day that we have to be together, I know for myself, I consider it a joy to know that you're here tomorrow or the next day. Yes, considered a joy to know that you're here tomorrow or the next day and both of us work to just keep that going, to keep that growing and make it a bigger, better thing on a daily basis. It definitely is different. When you look at couples that are having problems. You feel so sorry for them. Sometimes, just because we've been there and done that, we know how that feels.

Daniel Moore: 29:59

And when you see other couples that are struggling and they're trying to find their self-worth and their marriage, they're trying to decide is this going to work? Is it not going to work? They continue to fail each other as they make idle promises to each other and that kind of thing. It's hard to look at that now as a couple, from where we're at. I know for myself. It's hard to look at that now as a couple, from where we're at. I know for myself. It's hard for me to look at couples that are going through that.

Daniel Moore: 30:21

You just you feel for them because, you know what they're going through and that's not a good place to be in life at all. Marriage is supposed to be an awesome thing yeah.

Daniel Moore: 30:31

Being in love with somebody is supposed to be an awesome thing that you can't replicate anywhere else, right? And when you have anything besides that, it can really make life seem like a drag. No doubt about it. But as the emotions come and go, investing effort in your marriage will result in a stable and fulfilling relationship accompanied by intense and deeply satisfying emotions. Actively working on your marriage guarantees that healthy feelings will be consistently present, surpassing the fleeting emotions that arise from on. Your marriage guarantees that healthy feelings will be consistently present, surpassing the fleeting emotions that arise from allowing your marriage to drift emotionally. So as long as we work on our marriage and we're intentional in what we're doing, it's going to be really hard for that marriage to slip back again into being just a redundant activity that we take, that takes place every day, and two people that just exist together. Yeah, because when you're really working on something and trying to make it better and you're both on the same page with that, you actually should be experiencing new things as time goes along.

Aria: 31:36

And I also think, though, as you work on things, you know, God heals the heart, you know, and he takes your past disappointments and just, I wouldn't say wipe away, but he puts those in the past, you know, and you look to the next day or you look to that day of what you have in front of you. I mean, there's so many times that I think, when I was back then, it's like I wish it was different. Because of this and because of that, I now look at things. It's like this is today. You know, this is what I have, this is what God's gifted me with and this is what he's given me. What can I do to make this day the best day possible? My look of life is completely different now versus what it was back then.

Daniel Moore: 32:29

Yeah.

Aria: 32:29

And I know we had children. You know it was a blended family and it was very difficult, but because you never knew what was coming at you at any time, yeah, I think the look of life was different for me. You know, like, again, god was not at the center. He is at the center of my life now, and so it is definitely I look at things totally different, but I still feel like we work every day in our marriage to make it where it needs to be.

Daniel Moore: 32:58

And with you saying that, don't let the thought of you working at something be a bad thing either. Yeah, we all hate going to work. Yeah, To have to work for our paycheck and all that kind of thing. We love our jobs and whatever. But when it's deep down inside, when you think about it, you know we all wish that we could just stay home and retire to a point and just do what we want. We always have that thought in our mind. But when you look at marriage, when you think of it being work, you need to look at it in a positive type of work. The old song comes to my mind that we used to sing a lot at another church, that we used to go to Count your Blessings, and to me you should look at your marriage as a blessing, because that's what it is.

Aria: 33:46

Yeah, count your blessings, name them one by one. Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 33:50

When you think about that that way, as a blessing from God, which it truly is. God has blessed you with this person, this special person he's created for you and put you two together for a reason that gives you a whole new purpose in life. For one thing, you can work for God by yourself and you can do what God's plan is and do the winning other souls, evangelizing, being an example, whatever it may be. But look how much more work you can do if you have two people together that are focused on the same thing.

Daniel Moore: 34:22

And two, you know two is better than one, right when you have two people together that are focused on the same thing. And two is better than one, right when you have a team. That's better than being solo, right? That whole concept comes into play there.

Daniel Moore: 34:32

And so if you just look at your marriage in the correct biblical fashion, that this marriage is a blessing from God, god's gave this to me to nurture it to the best of my abilities and to make this work and be successful, regardless of the cost. And it's my job to keep Satan out of the equation and keep him from getting his hands into the middle of this, and God trusted me with that. So I need to then fulfill what God has put into my life and I need to make sure that this happens, and then you do reap blessings from that, from God. In the long run, he will bless your marriages and bless all of that. So when we talk about having to work for our marriage, it's an everyday grind. It's an everyday thing that we have to do. You can also be looking at that in a positive or negative way.

Aria: 35:23

I look forward to it every day.

Daniel Moore: 35:24

You should never look at it negatively.

Aria: 35:26

Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 35:27

This is being proactive at a job that God's given you. That's going to be a blessing in your life in the future and it's going to constantly give you your place in life.

Daniel Moore: 35:38

It's going to constantly give you a purpose? Yeah, because you're constantly building this love relationship with another special person that God has given you. So that's just some practical stuff to keep in mind as we talk about this pursuit pursuing this relationship that God has to the fullest extent of the way that you possibly can, by putting all of your work and effort into making sure that it grows. So perhaps you're in a stage of losing, or you've already lost, the feelings and the desires for each other. Perhaps you've been wounded and damaged each other in the process, because that happens a lot.

Daniel Moore: 36:12

We can be very careless with the words that we throw around towards each other sometimes and we can cause emotional issues within each other just by the things we say. I mean, it can be just as simple as that. If this is the case and you want your marriage to be restored and healed, god does have a three-step plan to restore the first love passion of your relationship and, of course, as always, this method is always guaranteed because it's straight from the Bible. That's where we need to take all of our methods.

Daniel Moore: 36:42

When we try to fix things. We should go to the Bible first the good thing about when God tells us to do something, he always tells us how to do it, and then he sends the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to accomplish it. He doesn't leave us on our own. And so there's three steps to renewal as we close up this episode for this week and we talked about these here a couple of weeks ago. Actually, this whole concept can be applied in several different areas of your relationship.

Daniel Moore: 37:07

But we looked at Revelation, chapter 2, here a couple episodes ago, and in verse 5, Jesus was speaking to the church of Ephesus about their loss of love and relationship with him. What once was a very strong bond was now starting to grow cold, and in response to this, jesus was instructing them to restore their love from him from where they started. Jesus gave them a three-step plan to achieve the renewal of their fervent love for him. He said remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the deeds that you did at first. These same three steps will also restore your failing marriage as well.

Daniel Moore: 37:45

So the very first thing, if you're going through this situation right now, where your marriage is failing because you're not putting the work into it and you don't have the desire to pursue this relationship that you started up several years ago because you thought you were so madly in love with this person and all of a sudden, you've now let yourself get into this position where you're just not so sure. The first thing that God instructs us is to remember from where we have fallen. When we first become Christians, our zeal for Christ is boundless. We eagerly share the gospel. We seek God fervently at every chance, and over time, distractions compete for our focus and many of us yield to these temptations, and that can cause our passion for God to diminish.

Aria: 38:25

That's right there.

Daniel Moore: 38:27

Yeah, and your marriage can be the same way. I mean, our marriage is a reflection of the marriage with Christ.

Aria: 38:32

When you read that, that was the first thing that I was sitting here thinking about what we walked and how honestly the distractions of our focus and causing our passion for God to diminish that right there.

Daniel Moore: 38:46

Yeah.

Aria: 38:48

So true.

Daniel Moore: 38:49

And most people. They think that when this happens, that we're just maturing in our faith and it's something that every Christian must experience. But it's not. Jesus calls this a blatant sin and he says that we must work to get back our first love. For him, jesus also knows why we lost it. He knows that we stopped prioritizing our relationship with him and failed to work hard at keeping that first love priority. It's also interesting to see that Jesus doesn't tell us to work up some emotions. For him, he knows the essential strength of love is not emotion. For him, he knows the essential strength of love is not emotion. He knows that it's fully a decision of our will. In fact, the word most used in the Bible is agape love, which means a commitment to love and do what is right for someone else, regardless of circumstances or emotion. God's standard and foundation for true love is to work in someone else's best interest, even when we don't want to.

Daniel Moore: 39:46

Many times, feelings are good and proper, but they are unreliable as the foundation of any relationship. Feelings are a harsh task, master, in your life. If you always just do what you feel like doing, your life's going to be a harsh cycle of confusion and pain when you make the decision to do what is right, regardless of how you feel, your life will be blessed and secure. So, knowing this truth, jesus called the Ephesians to remember the place from where they had fallen. He wanted them to recall their actions from the beginning, when their love for him was intense. He wasn't asking them to remember their feelings, he was asking them to remember their actions. So this also applies in marriage. He wants us to recall those joy-filled moments and the happiness that we had when the love was wild and new at the beginning of our relationship. Remember how you honored and how you did the little things to impress the other person. Remember how both of you thought of each other all day and looked forward to the next time you'd be together. The next step is repent.

Aria: 40:59

The word translated repent in the Bible means to change your mind. It also means to turn around or do an about face. This implies that we are going the wrong direction and we need to turn around and go the right way. When we are losing the love we once had for our spouses, it's evident that we at some point changed our mind and went in another direction. Therefore, we need to change that direction and repent in order to be healed. At that point, we need to turn around and think like we did in the very beginning. When Jesus tells us to repent, here is what he means Remembering the fervent actions and right attitudes you displayed at the beginning of the relationship. You are to change any actions or attitudes currently being displayed that are different from those at the beginning. True repentance includes these three ingredients Acknowledging the truth, revelation, admitting you are wrong, confession and adjusting your direction. Action and this situation applies to you, and you can admit that you need to repent and change direction and do so. You are then ready to proceed to step three.

Daniel Moore: 42:18

So far, in these first two steps, I can already look back at our marriage and see that we followed that. Yeah, because the first thing that we did whenever we decided that we needed to fix our problem and try to get our marriage back together I know there's lots of times, especially when me and you were at each other and it looked like it was done, I reminisced a lot about where we came from. Yeah, I mean, I remembered a lot of the things of the friendship that we had, even years before we actually got together. All of that stuff started coming back to my memory and I started realizing what I had messed up. I started realizing what I was missing. And so once you and I both went through that stage of realizing that we got put together for a reason at some point in time, we needed to revisit that and figure out why. We then had to repent to each other. We had to tell each other that we were sorry for everything that we had done to each other and actually mean it. And you can't move forward unless you take care of that repentance Absolutely. Because if you carry this baggage into trying to reformulate this marriage and put it back together again and all this baggage is still there and you've never truly repented to each other for that. You're going to just continue ending up in the same spot. You're going to continue to revert back to having problems and issues when that happens. And so the third step to finish this up is do the deed you did at first. You know.

Daniel Moore: 43:46

One thing to note is that Jesus requires no emotion from us. He didn't say, hey, you, you'd better work out some great emotions for me or you're going to be in big trouble. You know, jesus never says that. He simply told the Ephesians to act the way that they had at the beginning, when they were young. Once again, invest your time into the relationship, regardless of how you feel in the process. Then the positive emotions and the first love you once had will return, just like it was in the beginning, when it was new.

Daniel Moore: 44:15

You know, michelle and I came to this point in our marriage that we had to go back to the way it was before. We had to navigate back to where we last felt those emotions and that pure love for each other and start the process of reviving that all over again. We had to ask each other for forgiveness for what we had done to each other and then mean it enough to make sure the restoration process worked until our love was revived. Is our life perfect at this point in life? Is our life perfect at this point in life? No, it's not and it's never going to be perfect. We're both human, but we have taken the vow to work through all the ups and downs and remember where we once were, even when our things look sour for us on some days. By the end of the day, we remember what brought us together in the first place and as we continue to win those battles in our relationship, our bond grows stronger.

Daniel Moore: 45:11

So make a commitment today to work on your relationship as you reject the false brand of love that the world tries to throw at you. You can live in a marriage where love and satisfaction are the rule and not the exception. It all depends on your willingness to follow God's command and cleave to your spouse. Make the decision to chase your spouse with a renewed energy that will quickly fill itself with real love and it can become an addiction and not a hard, grueling work process. To make your relationship work, like we was talking about here earlier, you've got to look at the work side of that positively. Don't look at it in a negative manner, because you'll never enjoy that. As long as you do that, there's a real beauty in it and you can experience the wonderful truth of what your marriage should be when you do it God's way.

Aria: 45:55

Yeah, and I mean I'm so thankful for the work that we put into it, because I look at where we're at now today and even now putting the work into it, I love it. I love making you laugh, I love making you smile, doing things for you. I wouldn't want to do anything with anyone else but you and I'm so thankful that God restored our marriage.

Daniel Moore: 46:19

Yeah, and there's nothing like feeling accomplished. Yeah, you know anytime that you do something for me and you see that I truly enjoyed that and I respond back to you in a positive manner and it shows that our relationship grows. Or vice versa, if you do something and then I respond back to you, whatever it may be, there's a sense of accomplishment in that. Yeah, Because it truly matters to us, it truly has meaning whenever we're able to do something to make each other happy and know that the things that I do makes you so happy that you're here in our relationship and our marriage and in our home, and the things that you do makes me happy to be a part of this relationship and a part of this home, and it gives both of us a whole new meaning and a whole new reason to keep that flame burning and keep that relationship moving forward.

Aria: 47:11

Yeah, and even through the seasons of life that we've had since then you know it's some days were better than others, but you know what? Just every day was a new day that I woke up to you.

Daniel Moore: 47:23

Yeah, so there's just a lot of positives to that, and so we're pretty much worth the end of this this week. Just remember that, no matter where you're at in your walk in your marriage, you can never put too much work into it. That's right.

Daniel Moore: 47:39

Don't ever think that you're doing too much. It might be one-sided, I mean, you may be in that situation where you're the spouse that keeps trying and keeps moving forward, trying to work on it, and the other spouse doesn't seem like they're trying to do anything. But even in that scenario, god commands you to keep working at it. Keep praying, for sure. Keep praying for your marriage, for your spouse. God can move mountains.

Aria: 48:01

I mean, he moved a mountain in ours and he will honor you in your prayers.

Daniel Moore: 48:05

No doubt about it. That's very good. So, of course, solomon was the wisest man that's ever lived, and he wrote in Proverbs, chapter 14, verse 23,. In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. Don't just talk about making your marriage better. Work at it.

Aria: 48:26

And take her on a cruise. I just noted that for just future.

Daniel Moore: 48:35

Whatever you can afford, or a puppy. Yeah, we better get off here before she keeps coming up with all these ideas. No, those things are awesome. I mean, if it's something that you want to do for your spouse and they'll enjoy that kind of thing, you can afford it. There's just lots of different things that you can do to keep that flame alive.

Aria: 48:58

I just like to make him smile and laugh.

Daniel Moore: 49:02

Yeah, she does a pretty good job at that these days. So I'm thrilled with where we're at in our marriage and really happy with what God's done, and I know for myself that I intend to keep working as hard as I can to keep our marriage where it needs to be. And you do that for me every day as well, and that just makes me proud.

Aria: 49:23

I expect a poem next time A poem next time.

Daniel Moore: 49:26

Yeah, I've kind of set a precedent for myself here, haven't I? I'll work on that.

Aria: 49:31

Okay, 20 years from now, I'll get it yeah.

Daniel Moore: 49:34

There you go, so it ought to be a good one.

Daniel Moore: 49:36

I know it takes me 20 years to write it I know so well, we're going to go ahead and wrap up this week and finish up this episode next week. We'll come back as we continue our section on the law of pursuit. We've got a few more things to talk about when it comes to that. Until then, we just want you to know that we thank you guys for listening, and this show really wouldn't be possible without you. If you're a fan of the show, please leave a review on apple podcast, please subscribe to us on your favorite platform and on on most of the platforms there's show notes, and in those show notes, some of them have the links to those different areas. Or you can visit our website, connectingthegapnet. Everything is there on the website. Well, that's all for this week, and as we go, we believe that God's Word never fails us. God's Word has stood the test of time and, through Jesus' death on the, encourage each other to connect the gap.

Michelle Moore: 50:45

We upload a new audio podcast every Thursday and a video version of it on YouTube and Rumble. We are also on the Christian podcasting app Edify. You can subscribe to our podcast on many of the available podcasting platforms, including Apple Podcast, spotify, amazon Music, iheartradio, tunein Radio and more. We are also available on your Alexa-enabled devices. If you would like to contact our ministry for any reason, visit our contact page and send us a message. We hope you are blessed by this ministry. This is a production of Connecting the Gap Ministries.