Married on Purpose - 7 Steps to a Better Vision for Your Marriage - 213

If you ask a Christian couple if God put them together, they will almost always respond with something like, “Yes, we believe God put us together.” Then, if you ask them why God put them together, they will rarely be able to give you the answer. But there is an answer. Having that answer will take every married couple to another level in their relationship.

After Michelle and I had been married for around ten years, we finally had a good marriage. The Lord had performed a miracle for us, and we valued our relationship.

One year when we attended the XO Marriage Conference at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas we heard about a pastor that every year he and his wife took four or five days and went away alone together to talk and pray about their relationship and their children.

They would wake up and take the entire morning until noon talking and praying about every single area of their relationship. They began their vision retreat by surrendering their marriage and family to God and praying for the Lord to reveal His will to them. Then they talked about every area of their relationship, including sex. When they were in agreement about a particular area they were discussing, they then wrote down their decision as God’s vision for their marriage for the next year.

Here is what Proverbs 29:18 says about vision: “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law” (NASB).

Couples often argue because they have differing perspectives on various aspects of their lives, such as their children, finances, priorities, and sex. These differing visions can lead to division within the relationship. If a couple cannot agree on a unified vision for their marriage, discord is bound to occur.

Every marriage needs a vision. We discuss that on this week's episode.

Chapters

• 0:13 Marriage Vision Retreat Importance
• 11:03 Marriage Vision Alignment and Purpose
• 18:40 Clarity, Vision, and Marriage Success
• 27:19 Importance of Unity in Marriage Vision
• 34:28 Planning and Executing Marriage Vision Retreat
• 44:30 Vision Retreat Preparation and Importance
• 55:39 Podcast Promotion and Ministry Overview

Transcript

Daniel Moore: 0:13

You know, if you have a vision but I have a different vision, then is there any way we can work together and accomplish anything?

Michelle Moore: 0:22

No, Not together, it's going to be separately and then I think at that point it opens it up to be selfishly. If you're married and you're one as God, at some point you should have the same goal. If God's calling you to do something with your marriage and he's going to utilize that, it should be a common goal.

Daniel Moore: 0:40

Right, and that division goes away at that point and then you can make things happen. You just can't do it without unity. No-transcript Something, something bang. Welcome to Connecting the Gap podcast. This is a podcast about marriage, Bible and book studies, and we interview people that have a story. I'm Daniel Moore, your host, and, of course, once again my wife Michelle, sitting here with us today. We're doing a marriage series, the Four Laws of Love. We're still in the law of pursuit at this moment, getting ready to wrap that up here pretty shortly. Thank you for listening this week and joining us.

Daniel Moore: 1:54

If you're not familiar with our show, you can visit our website, wwwconnectingthegapnet. For all of our platforms that we are on. We're on YouTube and Rumble the links are there for that. Also on the Christian podcasting app, Edify. 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 platform. Give us a thumbs up or a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and we'd be eternally grateful to you for doing that that your part in helping our podcast, our ministry, to grow here at Connecting the Gap. Well, as I said earlier, here's where we're getting started. We're talking about married on purpose. It's another section of the Four Laws of Love and we're going to be covering that in this week's episode. We're going to be talking about how to have and prepare a vision for your marriage. We'll be talking about that this week on Connecting the Gap.

Michelle Moore: 2:57

If you ask a Christian couple if God put them together, they will almost always respond with something like yes, we believe God put us together. Then if you ask them why God put them together, they will rarely be able to give you the answer, but there is an answer. Having that answer will take every married couple to another level in their relationship. After Daniel and I had been married for around 10 years, we finally had a good marriage. The Lord had performed a miracle for us and we valued our relationship. One year when we attended the XO Marriage Conference at Gateway Church in Southlake, texas, we heard a pastor that every year he and his wife took four or five days and went away alone, together, to talk and pray about their relationship and their children. They would wake up and take the entire morning until noon talking and praying about every single area of their relationship. They would wake up and take the entire morning until noon talking and praying about every single area of their relationship. They begin their vision retreat by surrendering their marriage and family to God and praying for the Lord to reveal his will to them. Then they talked about every area of their relationship, including sex, when they were in agreement about a particular area they were discussing. Then they wrote down their decision as God's vision for their marriage for the next year. They had five children and they prayed about every child individually until they believed that they had a clear vision for that child for the next year.

Michelle Moore: 4:20

Proverbs 22, 6 says Train up a child in a way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from them. This verse can be interpreted in two ways. First, it obviously means we should train our children in the ways of God. Second, it also means we should train our children according to God's individual and specific plan for their lives. To God's individual and specific plan for their lives According to Psalms, chapter 139,. God knits us together in our mother's womb and has a detailed plan for our lives.

Michelle Moore: 4:55

It is the responsibility of every parent to pray and find out what God's will is for each of their children and then to be God's partner in helping a child to fulfill his desire and design for them. Partner in helping a child to fulfill his desire and design for them. This pastor and his wife were doing just that. Every year they had written a vision for each of their children. Needless to say, this pastor and his wife had and have a great marriage. All five of their children are now successful adults with great marriages and families of their own, and they credit their annual vision retreats as a major reason why they've been so successful.

Daniel Moore: 5:31

And as we begin this week's episode, I will say as we get started here that you know, michelle and I we've talked about this, this idea of having a vision, and we wish we had known this back when our kids were home, because we did not. And I will say right up front that when we did hear about this idea, we thought it was awesome and thought it was a really cool thing to do. Now, of course, you know, by the time that we came around to actually, you know, hearing about this concept, our kids were already out of the house and so we had already moved on beyond that point. So I will say here, as we get started, michelle and I have never really taken a vision weekend, necessarily not as the way that it's described here in this week's episode, but we still feel that it's super important and it's maybe something you guys haven't thought of.

Daniel Moore: 6:21

All of you that's out there listening maybe you've never thought about this idea and maybe this is the answer to what you're going through right now. Maybe this is the answer to the issues you have going on in your marriage. Now, michelle and I do make it a point every year, especially like around our anniversary. So Michelle's birthday and anniversary is in the same month.

Daniel Moore: 6:40

Yeah, I got ripped on that idea got ripped off on that one. To me it was all in the plan because I can knock out two things with one stone right in the first month. I always tell her that it's always cheaper on me, but no, we do go and we'll go somewhere, and usually we have a place in Branson that we go the most. That's usually our every year trip and we make sure that we go and spend that time together, you know, for a whole weekend, and then you know, if we're able to, we'll take some other trips together as well. And you know, during those times we do get to have some good conversation just about life in general and about things going on with our home life, and we'll talk about our kids and you know all that kind of thing. But we aren't raising our kids anymore, and so a big part of this Vision Weekend thing is about your children, and I think you know something that you and I didn't really think about when we had our kids still at home and something that you parents out there this might be more of a parenting episode this week to a point, but something you parents out there this might be more of a parenting episode this week to a point, but something you parents out there may have not have thought about is when our kids are growing up, they are trying to figure out their place in life. They're trying to understand who they are within themselves. They're trying to figure out their relationship with God once they get to the age of accountability. There's a lot of things going on in their life and it's our jobs as parents to nurture that. It's our jobs as parents to make sure that our kids grow up in that path that God has set before them. Because we know, if you have, you know, two kids, three kids, four, five, however many kids you have each one of your children has their own destiny. Each one has their own path that God has set before them, and it's our jobs as parents to try to help our kids understand what that path is.

Daniel Moore: 8:29

That's a place Michelle and I really filled in as our kids grew up. A lot. We just, you know, we coexisted, we parented the best way that we knew how, and, of course, a lot of that was based on how we grew up. And the way that we grew up was, you know, pretty tough, and so we had kind of a tough environment in our home, but we never really prayed over our kids and asked God what His plan was for each one of our individual children. I think we did at times, maybe at times I don't think we did enough to the fact where we really pushed them to help them get to where God wanted them to be. I would agree with that. I think we kind of left it up to the kids to figure that out and we just expected them to grow up, because that's what we did.

Daniel Moore: 9:14

I mean, I grew up and figured my own thing out, nothing against my parents, but my parents did not do anything. Now they took me to church and, you know, not do anything. Now they took me to church and I learned God's Word. They did all that part. But as far as my parents just sitting down and saying, okay, well, what is the plan for your life and what can I do to help you accomplish that? Or sitting down and praying God, what is Daniel's purpose in life? Well, where is he headed? Where is my brother Stephen headed?

Daniel Moore: 9:42

I don't think my parents ever really done that that because we had a lot of division there in a portion of our child of my childhood as it got to my teenage years. My parents ended up getting divorced, and so, you know, when I look back now, I kind of wish that we would have known this, yeah, and done something. I think our it makes your family life so much better because you're doing everything you can at that point to keep God in the middle of it, right, and I think that it would have helped tremendously. And so we're going to talk a little bit this week about what it means, what the virtues are of vision, first of all, and then we're going to just briefly talk about how you take these little trips. You take these little trips because there are certain things that you may not have thought of that you really need to make sure happens while you're doing these vision trips in order for them to be successful.

Michelle Moore: 10:30

I also think, though I mean even as a marriage couple, just with no children it's really good to do this, because you know to be able to talk about both your lives and sit down and pray together to find out what God has really our vision together as a couple, whether you have children or not. I think it's very important to take that morning time, because a lot of times you do your prayer in the morning and you read your Bible. I do mine in a different time, just simply because we're different.

Michelle Moore: 11:03

And so, you know, going on a vacation and doing it together and taking time in the morning, I mean I know we went to Colorado a couple of years and we did. We got up in the morning, we opened our Bibles and we drank our coffee, and you know, it's not. It was nice, you know, and that's it was our time to talk about stuff and everything. And I cherish that trip more than anything because it was something we don't get to do daily. I mean, it's just we're super busy. So I still think that even if you don't have children, it is very important. And if you can't do it as a couple, I know people that do it separately, like the husband will go here and the wife will go here and take that full week focusing on God and getting their vision, what God has in store for them.

Daniel Moore: 11:52

Yes, and so, with that being said, it's just it's really important to make sure that your focus is where it needs to be Because, as you mentioned, between the two of us, you know both of us go to work pretty early in the morning because we work daytime, you know work hours and so I do get up about 530 in the morning and I do my Bible reading throughout the week. Where it's hard for you to focus that early in the morning, you're better in the evening, and a lot of you listening out there can probably relate to this, to either one of us.

Daniel Moore: 12:27

Yeah, but with me. If I try to do it in the evenings, that's when I seem to be a little bit more scatterbrained or I may be writing on podcast or something like. Our schedules are just a little different between the two of us. So there's nothing wrong with having your separated times throughout the day, to, you know, do your Jesus time, your Bible time, prayer time and all that kind of thing. But it is good to every so often to make sure you do get together and that you do try to, you know, come up with God's plan with the both of you working towards the same goal at the same time.

Daniel Moore: 13:03

And you know, proverbs 29, 18 says this about vision. It says where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained or they perish. But happy is he who keeps the law. So a paraphrase of that scripture, basically, is when two or more people don't have the same revelation from God for their corporate purpose, it isn't possible to keep them unified, morally restrained. But people are blessed when they follow God's purpose for their lives.

Daniel Moore: 13:28

And Michelle and I we've talked about this repetitively as we've been going through this series, when I wasn't on the same page with Michelle and when she wasn't on the same page with me. It didn't work. We had problems. It might have worked for a season, but eventually stuff happened and we clashed, and you know, for a season, but eventually stuff happened and we clashed and you know it was not a good thing. And so if you don't have that vision and know exactly where God is pointing you towards, then we're doing it on our own at that point, and we know what happens when we take out all of that into our own hands.

Daniel Moore: 14:00

You know, couples often argue because they have different perspectives on various aspects of their lives, such as children, finances, priorities, sex. It's real hard to get on the same page with all of that. These differing visions can lead to division within a relationship, and if a couple can't agree on a unified vision for their marriage, then discord is going to happen. It's bound to occur at that point, occur at that point. Similarly, while many individuals ask the Lord for something like financial provision, it's essential to remember that His provision is tied to the vision of being honored.

Daniel Moore: 14:32

The Lord desires to provide for us all, but it's only when we align ourselves with His vision that His blessings are released, so we can go off on our own and do whatever we want to all we want, but God's not usually going to bless that Right, especially if it's not what he wanted for us. Yep, when we put ourselves in the position where we take that path, that he has, you know, ordainly put us on that path, then he's going to bless that path. We're on Right when we're in His will. So that's a very important thing to keep in mind when you think that you're just going to go ahead and go solo and go on your own, do your own thing.

Daniel Moore: 15:09

Amos 3.3 raises a significant question Can two walk together unless they are agreed? This is a pretty popular scripture that comes up quite often and of course, we all know that the answer is no. When taken off on a journey together, lack of agreement on the final destination can result in a constant conflict, and this is a common scenario in many marriages. Without discussing and praying about their shared goals in a proactive and a patient manner, couples may find themselves divided and frustrated as they struggle reactively to navigate their way forward.

Michelle Moore: 15:42

That's good.

Daniel Moore: 15:43

If you can relate to this situation, michelle, and I encourage you guys to prioritize setting aside time to escape with your spouse and engage in a vision retreat, and these retreats don't have to be extravagant. Some couples opt for camping or using RVs. It does not matter how you do this, it's just the concept of you doing it. However, when seeking to improve your marriage and to understand why God's put you together, having a structured plan and understanding the purpose behind your union is crucial. If Michelle's got an idea of the path she's wanting to go to and she's got an end goal but that is not the end goal that I have. Who's going to win that battle? One of us is going to lose, and so you have to make sure that you have the same vision of where your marriage is headed and you have to have the same goal that you're shooting for.

Michelle Moore: 16:31

And I, like the you know when you mentioned, without discussing and praying about their shared goals in a proactive and patient manner.

Daniel Moore: 16:41

Yeah.

Michelle Moore: 16:42

I really like that, because there are times that the other partner has to be patient.

Daniel Moore: 16:48

Yes. And that is I really like that a lot, especially if you have a distinct difference in where you're headed. Yeah, because if neither of you are on the same page, it's not a matter of you're going to come up and one of you is going to say, well, this is what I see and this is the right way, and this way it's going to be, and the other spouse just, oh okay, let's go do that. That's not usually how that happens.

Michelle Moore: 17:13

And we all know God when he's putting something before you. It takes time sometimes it does.

Michelle Moore: 17:21

For Him to open doors that need to be opened. So we need to remember to be patient. For you know, if you have something that God's laid on your heart and say this is the way I need to go, I need to be patient and you need to be patient. But I mean, if you know already and I'm like that's not what it's going to be because it hasn't happened, we need to be careful with that. Right, I really like that.

Daniel Moore: 17:44

Yeah. So there's five virtues of vision that we need to keep in mind as we go into this concept of actually getting the vision from God and what he has for us. The first one is clarity. So previously, when we started this episode, michelle was reading about how Christian couples attribute their marriage to God without fully understanding the reason behind it, and it's hard to believe that you could ask a couple why they're married and what their purpose is and they wouldn't really have a good answer. But I'm sure that probably happens a lot, because a lot of times we get married and we don't really think about the real reasons. We just love that person, want to be with them, and we go tie the knot, you know, and we don't think about. We do think about down the road, but I think a lot of times we think, well, we'll figure that out when we get there. You know, it's that type of a scenario.

Michelle Moore: 18:38

I can say that when we got married. I never realized, you know, I never thought what was God's purpose for the two of us. That didn't ever cross my mind.

Daniel Moore: 18:47

Yeah, because in all reality, if God's putting us together, god doesn't do anything for no reason. Everything he does is for a purpose. That includes us getting married. Uh-huh, you know, if God had you for me and me for you, then that means he had something that he wanted me and you to accomplish in the years that we were together, and so when we get married, that should be one of the first things on our mind. But I think Christian premarital counselors should really hammer on this with newlyweds.

Michelle Moore: 19:16

You know, nobody ever said anything to us, nobody said a word, no.

Daniel Moore: 19:19

So when you go into this you're thinking okay, well, we're getting married so we can have kids and a house and a white picket fence and live happily ever after.

Daniel Moore: 19:26

Well, don't forget the dogs and the dogs I mean. That is true, you do get all of that stuff usually, you know, depending on what your life path takes. But really there's more to it than that. Absolutely there's way more to it. And for us to be successful in marriage and successful in God's plan, for us to be used to the best ability that we can be as a married couple, we need to know what God's wanting.

Michelle Moore: 19:49

Well, it's eternal. It is. I mean, if you really think about it, that's internally. You know we should have thought of that.

Daniel Moore: 19:56

Yeah, and so this clarity is very important that we have that, so that we have a good, clear vision of why we're together you know, and the only way to figure that out is to get God in the mix and to ask Him and say God, what is it that you're wanting us to accomplish?

Daniel Moore: 20:14

You know, if you consider a scenario where you have complete clarity on this matter of why you are married, well, envision having a clear understanding of the purpose that God has ordained you as a couple, you know. Think about it from this perspective. How can you measure success if you're uncertain about what you're striving to achieve, if you don't have a goal set in front of you and you never make those goals, are you really being successful? If you don't have a goal set in front of you and you never make those goals, are you really being successful? I mean, you really got to think about that, because the only time that you're ever successful in anybody's eyes your own eyes, god's eyes, whatever it may be you have to accomplish something, you have to have a clear vision of what's going on, where you're headed, and you have to make that goal. Yeah, and that's how you have success. You know, if you're just out here, scattered around, just doing whatever, just bouncing off the walls and never really having any clarity of what's going on in your life or why you're doing it, it's, it's almost kind of like there's an example here of a guy, the a carpenter, that he buys a plot of land and you know, most generally, if you look at so Arkansas is a good example right now they're building everywhere. They're putting in subdivisions all over the place. Well, they have a plan in those subdivisions how they build them. They clear the land off, they go in there and they put the road in so you can automatically tell where the houses are going to be at. And they plot every lot in there to get the most efficient use of every piece of ground in that plot and they put those homes.

Daniel Moore: 21:41

Now some guy comes along as a carpenter and he gets a field, clears it off and he just randomly starts throwing oddball buildings just all over the place and just scatters them with no rhyme or reason or whatever. You know, despite the fact that he's good at what he's doing, he really has no clear vision there. I mean, all of that's not going to work together. You're going to probably waste a lot of property. You're going to, you know, waste a lot of the purpose behind why he's doing that, and so you don't want to be that carpenter that's just having shotgun ideas, I guess is a good way to put that. Just have an idea scattered all over the place. You need to have a good idea of why you're doing what you're doing and what the end result's going to be and what you're going to accomplish by doing that.

Michelle Moore: 22:24

And I think sometimes those change, the clarity does change. I would say seasons of life. I mean what God would want us to done back when our kids were younger, versus I mean the times as we got older and graduated. They went off the military. You know, brooke went off to college. I think seasons change. And it's very good to understand that we need to have clarity for each season.

Daniel Moore: 22:50

Yeah, you know a lot of people. They feel like that they're just together in a house having babies paying bills, raising kids, going through the motions, with no blueprint of anything of why all of this is really happening, and you know they don't know what they're trying to accomplish in the end. And so a shared vision when you have a shared vision between each other, that gives you clarity on why all of this is happening and what you need to do to make all of this successful when it's done.

Michelle Moore: 23:17

And that blueprint I mean you can be like that's God, that's, you know, going to the Bible, that's prayer, being involved in church, you know, having Christian friends.

Daniel Moore: 23:35

There's a lot of things for that blueprint that can be utilized.

Daniel Moore: 23:36

Yeah, so the second thing is energy. Vision is extremely motivating and exciting. If you have a vision and a plan and you get all excited about that plan, then what are you going to do? You're going to run and take off and you're going to try to make it happen. That's all right. Habakkuk says in chapter two, verse two. Then the Lord answered me and said write the vision, make it plain on tablets that he may run. Who reads it? And an example here Jimmy Evans gives.

Daniel Moore: 24:00

About 15 years ago he spent one day as a blind man, he said his retina detached from his right eye and he was instantly blind in that eye. The doctor had to put a patch on both eyes until he had surgery the next day, so he wouldn't be moving them. So for 24 hours he was completely blind. His wife, karen, had to do everything for him, lead him everywhere he went. And here's one thing he figured out about being blind is you don't run. The lack of vision means an inability to see the way that you should go. So here the Lord told Habakkuk to write down the vision he gave him so the person reading it could clearly see God's will and energetically pursue it. God's will for our lives is individual and customly made for each of us. Each person has their own plan that God has put in place for them, and none of them are alike. He doesn't have a one-size-fits-all vision for everybody. It's all different. It is personalized to your giftings, your circumstances, your dreams and your desires. Having God's vision brings clarity and excitement to our lives and marriages. So with these retreats, if you take these and you figure all of this out and you get in prayer, read the word together, I think you'll understand that when you come out of those retreats you're going to have a renewed energy within you to let's get going. Let's not be slow here. We want to get some things accomplished. And you start running and start heading towards that. The next one is purity.

Daniel Moore: 25:28

In Proverbs 29, 18, it said where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. When there isn't a clear purpose in what we are trying to accomplish, what happens? We get bored, we get distracted and we get tempted. And also because we don't see eye to eye with a common vision, there is division present, with all the problems that come with it. But vision brings discipline and focus. We don't want to mess things up because we are trying to accomplish something great that God has put before us. Our impure desires are restrained because we have something positive to do with our energies.

Daniel Moore: 26:04

So this comes to a point where you know a lot of people may go into marriage and they say well, you know, when you first get married you don't want to get divorced. That's the last thing on your radar. You're starting off a brand new life together and you're all excited. But we've talked about this a little bit already If you don't put God in the middle, those distractions and things can start coming in. And then what happens eventually?

Daniel Moore: 26:28

If you're not careful, the temptations can come up. If you start feeling like you're being divided from your spouse and things aren't going so great all of a sudden and you start getting at each other and you start feeling like you're being divided from your spouse and things aren't going so great all of a sudden and you start getting at each other and you start irritating and then the division starts to happen between the two of you and if you continue to let that go to the extreme, it could be a divorce. Yeah, somebody else could be stepping into that picture and you know, taking that place of view, as we talked about last week with the refrigerator. Yeah, you go shop somewhere else and so, but when you have vision, does that happen.

Michelle Moore: 27:02

No, it doesn't happen, because you know what both of you guys are going for.

Daniel Moore: 27:07

Right, there's no room for that impurity, because God already has everything fixed and put into place and if we're following that, there's no way Satan can get in the middle of that. At that point Unity is the next one. Jesus said every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. A house divided against its house falls. So you have to remember that division occurs because we have two visions. That's how that division comes up. A marriage without a vision from God to bring both spouses together in a singular vision is divided.

Daniel Moore: 27:44

Jesus revealed to us the spiritual truth that division is the enemy's open door to defeat us. And we also have to remember that God's financial provision is linked to his vision for our lives. And we also have to remember that God's financial provision is linked to his vision for our lives. So as soon as we get God's vision for our marriages, he is ready to pour out to us the total provision needed to sustain it and bring it to fruition. So if God gives us this vision, he's not going to leave us sitting here on our own trying to figure this out without his help. And it comes back to what we were talking about here just a while ago. You know, if you have a vision, but I have a different vision, then is there any way?

Michelle Moore: 28:26

we can work together and accomplish anything no. Not together, it's going to be separately. And then I think at that point it opens it up to be selfishly. I mean because if you're married and you're one as God, at some point you should have the same goal, not you know. I mean, if God's calling you to do something with your marriage and he's going to utilize that, it should be a common goal.

Daniel Moore: 28:50

Right, and that division goes away at that point and then you can make things happen. You just can't do it without unity. So always keep that in mind. And the last one here is victory. This is the grand prize of vision. If God gives us a vision and we follow through with everything that he has for us and we make it and accomplish that plan that he's put for us, then we get the victory. In all of that, you know, because we started by surrendering to the Lord and praying for Him to reveal His will to us. He then imparts His vision and provision because he's going to help us. He's not going to leave us to do it by ourselves and the result is victory.

Daniel Moore: 29:29

And you know, a lot of times in marriage we're opposite and you know we have our own thoughts and whatever it may be. But we know that even if it's not even in vision, if it's just in other things in general, that just happens with marriage. Every time we work together and accomplish things together, it's always victories. And you know how that makes you feel. Yeah, when you actually have an awesome thing, you succeed and you finish it, you have a good result. It just really makes you feel good inside and I think that also kind of helps with the energy side.

Daniel Moore: 30:03

It makes you energetic to start the next thing and just keep moving forward.

Michelle Moore: 30:07

Yeah, and I mean, if you think about it as you're reading these five virtues, the different scriptures that you have, you know, have written in here from the book. You know, I look at that and I think about, okay, how could we have used this in our marriage from the very beginning? And I'm sitting here thinking, gosh, I'd pick up my Bible every now and then, but it wasn't like and we didn't read together, we didn't pray together, and this can be sometimes overwhelming to a couple. And how do you feel? What would you say to them, as newly married couples coming into it, that this is not so overwhelming to them. Like you know, if they're really, they're new, new Christians, you know, because sometimes you read the Scriptures and some of this doesn't come out. So what would you suggest to them?

Daniel Moore: 31:06

I think staying in the Word regularly is important because the more you don't read and pray, the weaker you're going to be and people. I think a lot of times we don't realize that because we really, really in our own human minds think we can do this on our own. But in all reality we might be able to for a while, but it's going to catch up with us.

Michelle Moore: 31:29

Well, we're a prime example.

Daniel Moore: 31:31

Sooner or later. You're not going to be able to do it on your own. You're not going to be able to do it on your own If you practice every day to have a good Bible life, a good prayer life and keeping God in the middle. That's the glue that's going to always keep it together and that takes the difficulty factor out of it, I think, because you're already regularly doing what God's called you to do and you're seeking His will. So that's going to make—you're not going to have any big surprises, right, you know, everything's going to take place and it's going to happen in the way that God wants it to, because not only are you aligned with your spouse, but you're aligned with God together, and so that three-way relationship then is able to do everything that it's supposed to be to accomplish what God wants you to do. And so I think that's probably about the best and most important way that you can make sure that there's no surprises or things come up that you just don't know what to do, because God has the answer for everything.

Michelle Moore: 32:33

So what if one spouse is more in tuned with God than the other?

Daniel Moore: 32:41

Then the other needs to be an example. I think the other spouse needs to don't shy away from doing what you're needing to do just because your other spouse isn't. Keep doing it and keep praying that God will change the heart of the other spouse. That was the story from last week about the woman that her husband was mistreating her so badly and she turned the other cheek. She didn't treat him back the same way. She actually continued to love him from the most intimate deepness of her, and God eventually blessed that because she followed what God wanted her to do in that, and I think that kind of it falls over into this as well. Yeah, because if you have a spouse that's not on the same page, the best way to approach that is to keep praying about it. Yeah, keep reading your Bible, keep doing what you do and stay where God wants you, and he will bless you for that.

Daniel Moore: 33:34

So good and I think He'll bring that full circle.

Michelle Moore: 33:37

Good, that's good.

Daniel Moore: 33:38

So just remember that God doesn't bless good ideas, he blesses His ideas. His ideas are the ones that are important. The entire process of having a vision retreat for your marriage is about getting God's plan for your marriage in writing and in detail. It's about coming together as a couple and proactively planning rather than reacting and living defensively in the dark. So, as we wrap up the episode this week, we're going to talk about a few ways here on how to have a vision retreat.

Daniel Moore: 34:05

The very first and foremost thing that you need to make sure of is you go alone. You do not take your kids with you. This is important. This is a you time for the mom and the dad, the husband and the wife. This is a moment that you guys need to have on your own, to be together and not have any distractions from the kids. You know being there in the mix of all of this, and if it's a matter of money because you don't have the money to go somewhere, matter of money because you don't have the money to go somewhere, then you know, use some financial wisdom at that point.

Michelle Moore: 34:41

and save ahead of time.

Daniel Moore: 34:42

You know, put a little bit back, maybe try to plan it out a year ahead. That gives you 12 months to come up with whatever it takes to rent the hotel room or whatever it may be, but you need to plan for the retreat. You need to make it a financial priority, yeah, and that you do this and find someone that can take care of the kids, because are the kids a distraction to you? And when me and you're trying to absolutely, it's just kids. I mean, there's nothing bad about you know, having a weekend away. There's nothing wrong with that. You need to have that space, and so that's the first thing. Secondly, and I'm probably real bad about this, if I don't put something on a calendar, it's probably not going to take place, unless it's depending on what it is.

Michelle Moore: 35:27

And he's correct on that.

Daniel Moore: 35:29

So you need to put it on a calendar and make it happen, Because there's a lot of idle words that are thrown out throughout a marriage all the time yeah, we need to do this, that is something that we need to do, and 10 years later, we haven't done it, and I think even for both of us if we don't just get the hotel room reserved and start putting things into place. It's even sometimes hard for us to stay on track with that, and Michelle and I have had times where we've been all blow and no go. We just sit there and talk about it and never make it happen. So if you agree together that you're going to do this vision retreat whatever you have to do. You know your personality. Everybody knows what it takes to make them actually start moving in something and doing it. You know you need to start making those plans and checking off those little boxes and make it happen.

Daniel Moore: 36:30

Thirdly, be patient with each other and don't get discouraged. Now, why would that be an issue?

Michelle Moore: 36:40

Oh, you want me to answer that.

Michelle Moore: 36:45

Being patient with each other is really, really hard, and I mean I'm a type of personality that I want something done now. And so for Dan it's you know, it takes him a little bit on some things. I mean, and it should, because he's more thoughtful. He's that white personality that just sits there and ponders and thinks of things and really takes it in and I'm like, well, let's go, let's just do this, let's do that and just whatever spurts out of my mouth. I'm much better now than what I used to be, but couples have different ideas. Couples have different visions. You have to be patient with each other.

Daniel Moore: 37:29

Yeah, and then this is something, too, to keep in mind. You're not doing this vision retreat just so that you can be heard. If you're having problems at home between the two and you're not listening to each other and you're veering off in opposite directions and the irritation is building, don't take this as yeah, let's do go to get a room together by ourselves and leave the kids at home, because I need some time that I can get you in a corner and just tell you how I feel about things and make you listen and see my side of it.

Daniel Moore: 38:00

That is the total wrong way to go into this You're going into this because you're both trying to figure out what is irritating each of you and then praying about it and asking God how do we merge these together and come out of this and go back home with a plan?

Michelle Moore: 38:14

Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 38:15

So you have to make sure that, and if you go into it with that bad attitude, it's going to be discouraging.

Daniel Moore: 38:23

You definitely probably won't get anything done. You'll probably spend that whole weekend. I've seen couples be mad at each other after they left the weekend than they were when they went into it. It's like you have to be super careful with that and make sure that your purpose and your reasonings are right and that you're really trying to accomplish something, that you're not just going in there just to hammer on the other spouse and to submission, because that's not what this is all about at all. You have to go in with an open mind and accept the fact that if it's a two or or three day retreat that you plan that first day, you may both be just at each other all day just trying to figure things out. It may take that full three days before you finally come together and come up with a plan. It may not happen that first day.

Michelle Moore: 39:12

It just depends on how many issues you have going on in your life and your marriage, especially if you have stuff going on in a marriage.

Daniel Moore: 39:19

So you have to be patient and not get discouraged with that. But you both have to have the same mindset. You both have to want to fix it. You can't go in there if one of you aren't really interested in fixing anything or getting this vision. So number four seek God's will by faith and believe that he will speak to you. Now, this is a tough one. You know.

Daniel Moore: 39:43

Some wisdom comes to us from the book of James that says if you haven't. It says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. So having a successful vision retreat requires faith all of his ways. So having a successful vision retreat requires faith Because, as we were just talking, if you go into this with some baggage in your mind, you may think well, we'll take this weekend, but it's probably not going to work.

Daniel Moore: 40:21

You know, a lot of times we go into it with that attitude and if you have that attitude going in, you're probably right. It's probably not going to work. But we have to go into these retreats understanding that it's not just if it's me and you go, and it's not just me and you going into the retreat, it's me, you and God. There's three people in this equation, not just two. And so you and I are going in there to try to come to agreement on our side of it. We're also going in there to ask God to bless and to give us that vision that he wants for us, so that the two of us can work on it and make it happen.

Michelle Moore: 40:57

Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 40:58

And that takes faith. Because how many times did we, as our kids grew up and as we started into our marriage and stuff, we really didn't live on faith much at all.

Michelle Moore: 41:11

No, no, we didn't.

Daniel Moore: 41:12

You know, we made a lot of our own choices and a lot of our own decisions. And because it's hard yeah, I'm not going to say it's not, I mean, living by faith is very difficult. You have to understand that God's real God is there, by your side, he's going to help you make this happen. And then you have to walk out of that room, maybe seemingly like you really didn't come to with any answers, necessarily, but you have to walk out with an expectation that God's going to help you get those answers Right, regardless Right, and that is hard to do, but it's so important that we do it. So make sure that you keep faith in the equation, because you know that only happens as we pray and if we conduct our retreats by faith in God. That's how that takes place. This has to be a God thing for this whole weekend.

Daniel Moore: 42:03

Understand how vision happens and respect each other when you come together to find God's vision. You must understand that there are different ways that God gives each of us vision. In general, there are three types of people who receive vision in three different ways there's hearers, there's seers and there's feelers. So some people, they hear things and that's how they hear from God, other people. You'll come across people all the time that don't know how to hear from God. They ask all the time well, how do you? Well, they may see something that confirms something that God's doing, and so they may actually receive that confirmation by something that they see happen. Other people would see that in emotionally. You know, god may answer a prayer for them in an emotional way, but they may not actually be able to pray to God and feel like they hear from Him either in another way or they may not see something. So there's different ways. It comes back to this thing where all of us are different and we all operate differently. Between Michelle and I, we actually are different in that.

Michelle Moore: 43:16

I've been ready to say which one are you.

Daniel Moore: 43:18

I would say for myself I probably lean a lot towards C. I do have a little bit of here, but I feel like C is more my type of thing, where I feel like God just speaks to your inner being more. Is that right? How do you feel on you?

Michelle Moore: 43:37

I'm a feeler.

Daniel Moore: 43:37

Yeah, yeah, that's how I would see it as well. Yeah, because I'm kind of rambunctious and just you know, go all out all the way, just keep going and going. I don't stop to take time sometimes just to listen and whatever. That's just not my personality or the way that I'm constructed, but there is. There's a difference. So obviously, if we two come together, we got to know that up front so we know how to handle each other when we start doing this vision retreat thing, or it's not going to work. So if you're going to have a successful vision retreat, you're going to have to have some respect and compromise. You're going to have to have that present when you go into this and expect God to move according to how you both are and then bring it together. So just keep that in mind as well. Make a list of the things you're going to discuss and this is probably a big one, because, michelle and I, if we don't write stuff down, what do we do? I?

Daniel Moore: 44:40

forget, we forget it it never fails, and we could have this long. We could brainstorm for a month, going up to this and get our hotel room and sit down and go blank. I mean, it's just like, or we might remember one or two of them and then later we remember that those are the two least ones, that we even really needed to talk about. All the important ones we totally forgot.

Daniel Moore: 45:03

And so this is super important to make sure that you make a list and write everything down between the two of you. You make a list and write everything down between the two of you, and it's important, when you make this list, begin with the issues that are causing you the most anger and frustration. Make sure that those are the first things you talk about, because you need to get all the bad stuff out first so that you can start working on the other stuff with a clear mind. Because if you try working with a clear mind on the lesser stuff first, then you end up with the frustrating part. You could end up going home madder than when you were when you showed up, yeah, so you want to make sure you take care of all the angry, frustrating things first and put those on your list to get those out of the way, because we don't need any distractions, right.

Daniel Moore: 45:50

And that is a distraction if you have stuff like that going on and it needs taken care of, and the next thing is write everything down.

Michelle Moore: 45:58

I'm going to go back on this one because I like the notes that you have on here. It says also discuss your children and stepchildren individually and write down what you believe God is saying for the next year and write down what you believe God is saying for the next year. Discuss any other important relationships that are causing your problems, like Dan said, or frustrations, such as bosses, in-laws, friends, ex-spouses. Discuss your finances, your schedules and stresses that you need to resolve your priorities, your spiritual lives, your giving generosity, your sex lives, your health, fitness, hopes and dreams. When you leave your retreat, you may want to make sure that all important issues have been prayed over and talked through thoroughly. I just I really like those notes and I felt like that we should have read, you know, read notes.

Daniel Moore: 46:53

That's good. I didn't read down far enough to see what all I had there.

Michelle Moore: 46:56

That right there, take that.

Daniel Moore: 46:58

Yeah.

Michelle Moore: 46:58

I mean, and I mean that talks about your whole marriage right there, like all the people and you know discuss those ex-spouses. You know if you're a blended family, you know talk about all that.

Daniel Moore: 47:09

Yeah, yeah, Thanks for catching that Cause. It is important to know what cause a lot of times if we're sitting there thinking, well, what would we talk about? You know well, there's a lot that you can talk about.

Michelle Moore: 47:21

That was really good, I like that.

Daniel Moore: 47:24

So you know, yeah, just make sure that you don't leave any stone unturned whenever you go to these. And and you know the process that they're talking about here is on this retreat and it was kind of mentioned at the beginning. But just to make sure that the clarity is there, when you go to these retreats it's not necessarily a full-blown vacation. What you're doing is you're going somewhere, whatever it may be that you choose to do, but you're spending, you know, probably eight hours of your day or so going through all of this stuff. Then you use the evening to go do whatever you want Go catch a meal, go watch a movie, whatever it may be but two thirds of your time if you're doing a true vision retreat, two thirds of your time should be dedicated to this stuff.

Aria: 48:06

Yeah.

Daniel Moore: 48:07

Because this is why you're there. This is what's important and this is what's going to give you the things that you need to bring home with you to fix all of the issues and make sure you're on God's path. The final thing here is if you don't write it down, it didn't happen, because we all know that we can talk about a lot of things. You know, I script out almost all my podcasts. Almost every one of them are scripted out, and I do that for a reason.

Daniel Moore: 48:34

I do that because I have thoughts and all kinds of things that I want to throw into my podcast. I know good and well that when I start recording, I'm going to forget half of them if I don't have them wrote down. That's just what happens with me, and I know a lot of people are like me, and so take a journal, a computer, an iPad, whatever. Your best thing is that you like to take notes on, and you know Michelle's a good, pretty good note. She's a lot better note taker than I am when it comes to stuff like this, but it's important for everybody in this scenario, I think to be a good note taker.

Daniel Moore: 49:08

Because guys are going to take things, the husbands are going to take things from it to make notes that the wives may not really catch or think of, and vice versa. That's even something later. That's good, you could compare notes, yeah.

Michelle Moore: 49:21

And see what you came up with. You go back to what you wrote down A year later. You know how much has changed from that time and to where God's brought you to.

Daniel Moore: 49:30

Yeah, how much has changed from that time and to where God's brought you to, yeah, and so make sure that if you're going to go through all this trouble to do this yearly, bi-yearly, whatever it is that you think you need to do, whatever between you and God, you come up with that schedule. Make sure that you make it profitable by bringing home a record of what took place and what happened, because it's real easy to get back home into the mix of things and the kids and job and everything that goes on, and it's easy. Just not even a month later you can be thinking, man, we talked about something. I can't remember what it was. Well, you can go back to your notes and you can look and see what it was and that'll help refresh your memory and remind you why you took that weekend. Yeah, and make sure that that stuff happens. That way, If you don't write it down, it's probably not going to happen a lot of it, because you will forget a lot of the stuff that you talked about once life starts happening again, when you get back home and you know some of that stuff's just going to go to the wayside if you're not careful. So make sure you take notes and that's how you do a vision retreat. So I just think that, like we said at the beginning here, michelle and I really feel like we kind of missed out on this.

Daniel Moore: 50:42

A good friend couple of ours and we've mentioned them a couple of times here on the podcast Scotty and Vicki they're the ones that got us to go into XO. They went before we did the XO marriage conference and they started doing the date nights on Thursday nights and did that for quite some time, and so Michelle and I did that a little bit as well there for a while. We started doing that and it is. It's a good, refreshing time. Of course, when you don't have kids at home at home, again, there's a little bit of a difference, because michelle and I, when we go to eat, we're already kidless. Usually our kids are out of the house and for the most part and we don't usually have them with us. So we already have our time. We set our phone down and and chit, chat and talk, you know, over our meal or whatever. But if you have kids in home, you're going to be taking your kids to eat with you and you don't have any time for each other.

Michelle Moore: 51:34

And it's important to do that. I mean I think now. I mean we have a son and daughter-in-law that has three littles. You know they'll reach out to us and be like can you watch the girls so that we can just go eat? Absolutely, because it's important for them to be together, just the two of them. Well, they have Bella because she's so tiny but and she's still a baby. But one thing I want to mention is just remember you can get through any problem. You have God on your side. Vision retreats get better every year because you learn how to do them and, as time goes on, you aren't dealing with as big of issues as in the beginning. So don't get discouraged and don't give up.

Daniel Moore: 52:19

Yeah, that's probably the most important thing, because the longer you're married it's easier to get frustrated with each other, the more you get to know each other and know each other's attributes and personalities and all that kind of thing we have to live with each other with a lot of grace sometimes, which, the same way, you know, god has to put up with us.

Daniel Moore: 52:43

That's just the way that works. But it's just. If you give up on trying to make it happen, you give up on trying to solve issues and solve problems, In essence, you're really just giving up on your marriage and you don't want that to happen. You don't want to be one of those statistics where you know I tried everything I could and it just didn't work. So here I am, divorced, you know, and split families and kids, going opposite directions and all that. That's not fun, that's not a place that you want to be and I really feel you know that, michelle, and I feel that this is really an important thing for married couples, with or without kids, to take on is try to do some kind of you got to have some special time for each other.

Michelle Moore: 53:28

Yes, absolutely. On a regular basis and even if you don't have kids just yet, make sure you're taking that time with your spouse.

Daniel Moore: 53:37

Start practicing.

Michelle Moore: 53:38

Yes, because you know life is busy. Not everybody has kids, but life is busy. Satan steals our time.

Daniel Moore: 53:47

Yes.

Michelle Moore: 53:48

And it's very, very important to take that time with your spouse phones down, listening to each other. Like we said today, write down the goals that you know, the vision, so you equal to that vision, that both of you are on the same path.

Daniel Moore: 54:05

Yeah, that's definitely important. So I think that's going to wrap it up for this week. You have anything else to add, or I think we hit it all.

Michelle Moore: 54:14

No, but I'm ready for a vision retreat now.

Daniel Moore: 54:16

Yeah, I know.

Michelle Moore: 54:17

After talking about it, I'm like we need to do this.

Daniel Moore: 54:20

Well, we actually scheduled our anniversary trip, was it last week?

Michelle Moore: 54:25

Yeah, but we got friends going with us, but we do have friends going with us.

Daniel Moore: 54:36

So it's kind of hard to spend the eight hours of soaking into that, that's true. So we need another trip. We do have some friends going with us. This year it's going to be a pretty exciting time, spending some time with them. Yeah, michelle and I have things that we try to do with each other, and so it's just important to make sure that you cherish each other and spend that time.

Daniel Moore: 54:51

Well, that's going to do it for this week. We're going to wrap up this episode with all of that Hope. You guys put some of this into play and maybe it'll help you in your marriage here in the future. Next week, we're going to be starting off a new law. It's the law of partnership, and this is a law that really has no exceptions. You have to put this law into place if you're going to be successful in your marriages and make sure that you keep them going in the way that God wants you to go. And so you want to make sure that you subscribe, and, since you don't miss that episode, you can go to all of our platforms and click, follow or whatever it may be, to subscribe to those and make sure you do that so that you don't miss anything coming up here on Connecting the Gap.

Daniel Moore: 55:37

Well, I'm Daniel Moore. Thank you guys so much for listening. This show really wouldn't be possible without you. If you're a fan of the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Or, if you don't want to take the whole time to do that, at least if you could just hit the five star option there and that helps us out. The more we get of those, the more this podcast is spread out in the algorithms and the more that people that need to hear these episodes will be able to hear those. So please help us out with that. Please subscribe to us on your favorite platform, and the links for those are in our show notes. Well, that's all for this week, and we believe that God's Word never fails us. God's Word has stood the test of time. Answer Jesus' death on the cross. He has connected the gap.

Aria: 56:18

You've been listening to Connecting the Gap podcast. In this world, there are many disconnects that cause chaos in our lives. This podcast is birthed from the desire to share hope and restoration of the power of the gospel by being transparent and open in our biblical walk with God. Each week, we take a few moments as we navigate God's Word and peer into other people's testimonies and encourage each other to connect the gap. 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, iheart Radio, 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.