Marriage and Parenting as Discipleship (Marriage as a Mission) Pt 2 - 337

Somebody is discipling our children every single day, and it might be a screen. Algorithms, social media, and entertainment are shaping what kids believe about identity, truth, and purpose, often louder than a parent’s voice. We want to bring that problem to light, not to shame anyone, but to remind you of your calling: God did not accidentally place your children in your home. He entrusted them to you on purpose. 

We dig into the real cost of distraction, including how rising screen time affects family communication, anxiety, and spiritual formation. Then we lay out a practical, Bible-based approach to Christian parenting and family discipleship at home: your kids belong to God first (Psalm 127:3), discipleship happens in everyday moments (Deuteronomy 6:6–7), and seeds planted early can grow later (Proverbs 22:6). We also get personal about discipline, repentance, and why rules without relationship can drive rebellion, while love and truth together form lasting faith (Ephesians 6:4). Prayer is not an optional extra, it is how we admit we cannot out-discipline the culture on willpower alone. 

Then we connect parenting to the thing many couples forget: marriage is the foundation kids stand on. We talk about unity as messy, real-life alignment and why Scripture ties marital oneness to raising “godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15). When kids watch a husband and wife forgive, communicate, and cling to Christ under pressure, they see a living picture of the gospel that no program can replace. 

If you want your home to speak louder than the algorithm, press play, share this with a parent you love, and subscribe so you do not miss the next conversation. After you listen, will you leave a review and tell us the boundary you need to set this week?

Want to purchase the book and study guide for this series? Check the link here:

Currently available on Amazon at the links below:
Paperback, Hardcover, and Kindle: http://bit.ly/4nMs7kP
6-Session Study Guide: http://bit.ly/4nac67e (Amazon Exclusive)

You can also get this anywhere you get your books online and at www.marriagelifeandmore.com.

Transcript

Culture Is Shaping Your Kids

Daniel Moore 0:08

This week, we're diving into a conversation that honestly could not be more important in the world we're raising kids in right now. Because whether we realize it or not, somebody is discipling our children every single day. The culture has a voice. Social media has a voice. Algorithms have a voice. Screens are preaching sermons nonstop to the next generation. And if we're not intentional as parents, those voices can become louder than ours. We live in a time where families are busy, exhausted, stretched thin, and constantly distracted. And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, meaningful discipleship at home can slowly begin to disappear without us even noticing. But this episode is not about guilt, it's about calling. Because God did not accidentally place your children in your home. He entrusted them to you on purpose. Parenting is not just behavior management, survival mode, or getting everybody through the week without another trip to the emergency room because somebody jumped off the couch pretending to be Moses parting the Red Sea. Parenting is kingdom work, it is discipleship. And this week, we're going to talk about what it looks like to intentionally raise children who know Christ while also protecting and strengthening the unity of your marriage in the process. Because one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is not perfect parenting, but a Christ-entered home where mom and dad are pursuing Jesus together.

Show Intro And Where To Follow

Daniel Moore 1:37

Welcome to Marriage Life and More. This is a podcast about marriage, Bible, and book studies, and we interview people that have inspiring stories. I'm Daniel Moore, your host. Thank you guys for joining us. Over here next to me is my beautiful co-host, my wife Michelle. Hey, hey. If not familiar with our show, check out our website at marriagelifeandmore.com. Our links to our platforms are there. YouTube and Rumble links. We're also on the Christian Podcasting app Edifi. We're also on your Alexa and Google Smart Devices. You can also visit us on social on Facebook, Instagram, and X at CTGAPOnline. If you're a fan of our show, please subscribe and feel free to leave a comment on our platforms. Give us a thumbs up or five-star review on Apple Podcast. And we'd be thankful to you for doing that. Well, last week we started off another episode. It was episode seven in our series on marriage as a mission, which follows the first book that we released here at Connecting the Gap. And as usual, you can go pick that up anywhere that you can get books. There's also a link for this in the show notes as well. So you can actually click there and purchase it if you haven't done so yet. And we're going to go ahead and get back into part two this week. We went through part one last week, and I think we covered a lot of really good territory. So this week we're going to go ahead and finish up episode seven, Marriage and Parenting as Discipleship.

Screen Time Stats And Spiritual Cost

Michelle Moore 3:22

And listen, I'm not here to make anyone feel guilty about that. Life is expensive, and most families are doing what they have to do. But we have to be honest about what the reality costs us relationally when we're not intentional about protecting family time. Because here's what's filling the gap left by parental presence, the screens. American teenagers are averaging seven hours of screen time a day. Seven hours. Not for school, just for entertainment and social media. That's essentially a full-time job, except the employer is an algorithm that doesn't care about your child's soul. And as screen time goes up, meaningful parent-child conversations go down. The dinner table conversations, the car ride talks, the how is your day and I actually want to know moments, those are disappearing. And with them goes something irreplaceable: the transmission of values, faith, and purpose from one generation to the next. When we hand our kids a device to keep them quiet, we may be accidentally handing them their discipleship to someone else. The American Psychological Association has flagged that children today are experiencing higher levels of anxiety and depression than previous generations. And part of that is directly tied to the erosion of family communication and parental involvement. Kids weren't designed to figure out who they are without us. They need us in the room and they need us present. Sociologist Christian Smith, in his research on the spiritual lives of American teenagers, coined a phrase that should haunt every Christian parent: moralistic, therapeutic, deasm. Basically, it's a vague, watered-down spirituality that says, be a good person. God exists somewhere out there, and he wants you to be happy with no deep conviction, no biblical foundation, and no costly discipleship. And the scary part, it's not that our kids are rejecting faith, it's they were never really given one because no one has sat down and talked to them about it. Jonathan Hayt's work echoes this, noting a generation that makes decisions based on feelings rather than principles. And again, that's not an accident. That's the fruit of the children growing up without consistent moral and spiritual formation at the home. A generation that was never taught what to believe will believe whatever it feels.

Daniel Moore 6:24

And as we start off this week's episode, we kind of touched on this real lightly last week about the screens. But I think whenever we actually start putting the statistics to it and we start seeing the actual numbers of how this is actually affecting children, I think it really heightens the awareness for us as adults and parents of how important it is that we shouldn't let our kids rely on that type of thing all the time for entertainment. You know, your brother, he's an existent principal at a middle school. And how many times has he has he talked to us and we've had conversations about the effect of kids having devices all the time?

Michelle Moore 7:06

Well, it's it's talked about quite a bit.

Daniel Moore 7:08

It's a huge issue.

Michelle Moore 7:09

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 7:09

And, you know, parents will fight the schools over making sure their kids have their phones in their hands.

Michelle Moore 7:15

And you know, we were kids, we didn't even have phones.

Daniel Moore 7:18

I know. Yeah, it's something that today has become a crutch, really. And it's a very bad habit, to be quite honest. You know, the the parents around here where we live at have we've actually had a couple of instances where uh this exact subject's been brought up on social media, how the kids need their phones taken away while they're in classroom because it's taking away from their studying, it's taken away from their attention span. Uh they're sitting there on their phones doing things that they shouldn't be uh instead of studying and that kind of thing. And those parents, they go mad. Well, I can't get a hold of my kid if something happens. What if somebody breaks into the school and does this or that? Well, school's been here for hundreds, you know, hundreds of years. Why was that not a worry back in the day? Right.

Michelle Moore 8:07

It's like, no, I get it.

Daniel Moore 8:08

What is so different now that you're so worried about being able to contact your kid instead of calling the school on their phone, just like back in the day when you and I were in school, that's how you had to do it. And your kids can learn.

Michelle Moore 8:22

But you know, this I also think, and I mean you can tell me if I'm wrong or not. It I also think that as parents, we don't do a very good job of being an example of that. Because how many times have you got in a car and you've driven somewhere or driven somewhere like a couple of minutes and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't have my phone. Yeah, I gotta turn around. It's like you can't live without that phone yourself. So you're setting that example that that phone is more important than anything.

Daniel Moore 8:48

Yeah. And you pass people all the time that are driving with their eyeballs glued to the phone, not even paying attention to the road in front of them.

Michelle Moore 8:56

I have been guilty of that a time or two.

Daniel Moore 8:59

Yeah, it it's easy to do. I'm not gonna lie. There's a time or two that I've done it. I try to avoid not doing that unless it's just something that I've deemed to be important.

Michelle Moore 9:08

It has to be extremely important and it's like a a talk to text. It's not like, you know, looking.

Daniel Moore 9:14

But even then, should we be doing that? Probably not, because the safety factor isn't really there that used to be there back in the day whenever there's still trying. And so this is just probably a lesson and a wake-up call for all of us, honestly. You know, as we go through this episode, there's just things that you just have to think about. There's things that you have to approach when you're thinking about how your kids are growing up and that example that we're setting for them as parents. And so, you know, you just got to be careful with all of that. You

From Guilt To Calling And Privilege

Daniel Moore 9:45

know, the thing is, is this episode's not about despair. We're not trying to, you know, hit all the bad stuff here right off the bat necessarily on purpose. This is about calling. And if you're a Christian parent, you don't just have a responsibility here, you actually have what's called a privilege, a holy, weighty, beautiful privilege. You actually get to be the person who shapes an eternal soul. So awesome. I mean, think about that. Let that sink in for a second. God didn't hand your child to a school, he didn't hand them to a screen or a social media influencer. God handed them to you, the parent. And that's not accidental, that's intentional. That's a sovereign choice that God made.

Michelle Moore 10:28

I so wish I had that when we had our children.

Daniel Moore 10:32

It sure makes your perspective be different.

Michelle Moore 10:33

And you know what? It's in the Bible.

Daniel Moore 10:35

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 10:36

You I've read it, you know, and it's just I never applied it, and I wish I could go back and apply it because I think things would have turned out differently. But so goes as it is, but this is so important. And when you s when you read let that sink in for a second, I mean, if you really think about that, that biblical principle of raising your children, of how God entrusted us with that.

Daniel Moore 11:02

Yeah. And just looking at it that it's a privilege that we get our kids, I would have disciplined differently. I would have handled a lot of the situations and the conflictive things that happen between us and the children. I would have handled that probably a lot differently. Because sometimes your kids seem to be more of a burden than a privilege, especially when they're being hateful to you and they're upset and mad and throwing timber tantrums in the middle of Walmart on the floor. Those are not moments you think about, oh, this is such a privilege to be a parent.

Michelle Moore 11:32

It's a very challenging time at that time. Yes.

Daniel Moore 11:34

And so, you know, we that's where, you know, having that Christ-like mind comes into play.

Michelle Moore 11:40

That's so good.

Daniel Moore 11:41

Because when we have Christ in there and we try 24-7 just to keep ourselves biblical oriented and the biblical way, then when these situations do come up like that, our natural instinct at that moment is to approach it in a Christ-like manner. And so we don't have the blow-ups, the big blow-ups necessarily, like we do when we don't keep Christ in the middle of those answers. And so as we continue here, we got some with some biblical foundation that we want to share with you guys about your kids. And why don't you go ahead and share the first one with us?

Michelle Moore 12:19

Yeah,

Seven Biblical Anchors For Parenting

Michelle Moore 12:20

the first one of the biblical foundation is your kids belong to God first. That is found in Psalm 127.3, and it says, Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring, a reward from Him. The word heritage there isn't just a nigh sentiment, it means inheritance, a trust, a legacy. Your children don't ultimately belong to you, they are alone from God who loves them even more than you do, and that's saying something. Which means the way you raise them has internal implications, not just earthly ones. You're not just raising your children, you're stewarding souls.

Daniel Moore 13:06

And you know, it's funny this word comes back up because you and I was talking about this last night. When we look at everything biblically and everything about us, who we are in Christ, who we are in our marriages, here it is again, who we are as parents and how we raise our families. When you look throughout the New Testament, even in the Old Testament, it's a it's a major theme, but you see stewardship. Everywhere that you look, anything that God has his hand in first and he passes it off to us as his creation, he gives that to us with an expectation that we're going to steward it wisely. And you can see in Proverbs, for instance, there's lots of scriptures in Proverbs about good stewardship. You know, a lot of times we want to just pinpoint this on money. You know, we hear a lot of stewarding sermons on money, tithing and all that kind of thing. But that just that's just the tip of the iceberg. Everything that we do in our life, that God, you know, it's from God. It's privileges that He gives us. He's created it all, He passes it off to us to handle it. So therefore, He expects us to steward it in a godly manner. And He gives us those in the directions and the instructions on how to do that. And so I think when we look at it this way, that you know, when we're disciplining our kids, if we're doing it too harshly, we're being too mean, we're actually doing that to something that belongs to God because they are God's first.

Michelle Moore 14:35

Yeah, that's good.

Daniel Moore 14:38

Yeah, to steward. And we're not just like it says there, we're not just raising children, we're actually stewarding their souls. So how are we going to steward then? Are we really concerned about not only how our kids grow up, but are we concerned about God's thoughts about how we are raising our kids? Because God's just as He's more invested in than we are, He's the one that created them. And so I think that's something that we have to think about a lot whenever we model marriage in front of our kids. And when we raise them, is we've always got to keep that in mind. I think I'm glad that's number one. That's a very good point to start out with, is it gets right down to the brunt of it. Your kids belong to God before they belong to anybody else. So the second one here is discipleship happens in the ordinary. And in Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7, that we mentioned last week, it's the cornerstone passage here. God tells his people, these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children, talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up. Notice that God didn't say, Send them to the right program. He didn't say, drop them at church and hope for the best. He said, You in the car, at the table, at bedtime, in the morning, you're not passing the buck off to somebody else to raise your kids. God gave this responsibility to you, the parent. The discipleship of your children is woven into your daily rhythm. It's not a special event, it's a lifestyle. Now, if we stare and think about this for a minute, that means that some of our most powerful parenting moments might happen when we're tired, when we've had a long day, when we'd rather just watch TV. And then at that moment, our kids ask that question, and you know the one, you know, we have the choice to deflect or engage. Well, anytime our kids have those questions and it's an opportunity for us to pour into them, it's an opportunity for us to maybe give them some good advice, then we need to choose to engage every time. We need to make sure that that's our priority because those are the learning moments that your kids, and and in some cases, those might be the moments the kids remember for a lifetime. Uh, that time that I asked dad or I asked mom this question, and if you know, as an adult, I look back, that was probably a stupid question, but they treated it like it was the most important question that ever been asked.

Michelle Moore 17:09

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 17:09

I mean, imagine how your kids respond to that. And so I think that, you know, with point number two here, we have to make sure that no matter what the case is, no matter what the situation with our life is at that moment, because you know, it's as adults with work and everything that goes on, we do get exhausted by the end of the day.

Michelle Moore 17:29

We do.

Daniel Moore 17:29

But just because we're exhausted doesn't mean our responsibilities as a parent shuts off for the night. We still need to be able to engage with our kids in a good manner to help them grow and learn more about marriage in Christ. So what's the next one there?

Michelle Moore 17:45

Yeah, the number three is plant early and plant deep. Proverbs 22, 6 says, train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. This is both a principle and a promise. The seeds you plant early, the bedtime prayers, the scripture memory, the honest conversations about faith, doubt, and grace, those seeds won't disappear. They go underground sometimes, but they grow. Don't despise those small moments. Those small moments are the ministry. The faith you whisper over your child at night may be the anchor that holds them in the storm. You'll never see.

Daniel Moore 18:33

And I like this one because sometimes we do do things that we don't see instant results. And there's times as parents we might think, well, that was a worthless conversation. You know, it's like maybe you're trying to pour into your kid about something and they just don't quite see it your way. And maybe they walk away in a, you know, prideful spirit or whatever, and you think they never they didn't listen to a word you said. But you know you never know. Once you do speak it into them, it is there. That seed has been planted. And all you can do at that point is pray over that seed that God will water it and that it it will grow inside of them, and someday they'll be walking along, something will happen, it'll trigger them. They'll think, that's what my parent was talking to me about that day. And I'm so glad they did that because now that helped me in this situation. That's good. And I think that's just a good way to look at that. So don't give up on any of those, like it says, small moments. Take advantage of all of that to you know have the opportunity to plant that seed. The next one is lead with love and not just law. And this one is probably a really good one for me to be sharing. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 4 gives parents and specifically fathers, this charge. Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Well, in this verse, there's a tension there. It's discipline and love, structure and grace, authority and relationship. And the honest truth about this scripture is that parenting without relationship produces religion. Parenting with relationship produces faith. Rules without relationship leads to rebellion. And we've all seen it. Maybe some of us have lived it. The goal isn't to raise kids who behave correctly in front of us, it's to raise kids who love Jesus when we're not in the room. And I can definitely, as a personal example, relate with this because I was a very hard disciplinarian when our kids grew up. I was very hard on our kids, and there's a lot of times that I took things way too far. I disciplined out of anger, and you know that gets you nowhere good. And honestly, the kids probably didn't learn nothing from that except that I was a mean person during that time. And as it says there, I didn't have the right relationship with the kids when all of that was going on. And my parents were the same way. They disciplined exactly the same way. And I can tell you, when I got in my upper teenage years, I didn't have much of a relationship with my parents. I rebelled. And I've seen plenty of other friends of mine rebel because they got treated the same way. Now the Bible does say spare the rod, spoil the child, and it talks a lot about how to discipline kids. But the truth of this whole thing is that if we focus more on our kids' relationship with Christ and making sure that they are led in that direction, that they accept him into their heart and they become good Christian kids that try their best to follow Jesus, then typically you're not going to have as many or as you know, a lot of those issues that you have. They're still gonna mess up because they're kids. But I think that you probably do see a lot less of it if they're following Jesus. Yeah. And I think that should be our focus is to try to raise our kids up in that way, instructing them that we don't act like this. Because of who Jesus is. It's not, we don't act this way because you're gonna get the belt or you're gonna get disciplined in a very heart, you're gonna get yelled at, you know, grounded or whatever. There's pl there's times and places for the different types of discipline and all of that. I totally understand that. But we need to go to the point where we try to teach them to be like Jesus first. And I think that would probably resolve a lot of those issues. What's number five?

Michelle Moore 22:36

Number five, you're raising kingdom builders. 1 Peter 2.9 says, believers are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. That includes your kids. They are not just the future of the church, they are active participants in the kingdom right now. We're not raising children for comfort, for success, or for the American dream version of a good life. We're raising them to proclaim the gospel, serve others with radical love, and live counter-culturally with bold, unashamed faith. That's a high calling, and it starts in your living room.

Daniel Moore 23:23

This reminds me of church camp.

Michelle Moore 23:25

Yes.

Daniel Moore 23:26

When you go to church camp as a counselor and you watch all those kids transform over that week, they come in kind of rough, tough, and wanting to play all the time. And you know, you sit there and watch them transform over the week as God touches them, and by the end of the week, they're just broken. I mean, you see them up the altar every night, they're praying, they're crying out to God. That's, I think, what I like to think of when I think about kingdom builders. Those are the kids that someday is going to lead our nation. Those are the ones that are going to have our grandkids. Those are the ones someday that's going to make a difference in somebody else's life. And so I think that we need to always keep it in mind that, and it this kind of actually goes hand in hand with the last point to an extent, uh, to the fact that we want to make sure that we're always pouring into them biblically, always trying to make them understand how important it is to want to be a Christian leader. Because even in their own schools, you see kids all the time that are in middle school or in high school that are they're game changers. I mean, they have their faith and they're strong in their faith, and they're not afraid to talk to their friends about it. And what better uh feeling could you get as a parent to know that your children are going to school and standing their ground and winning other kids for Christ?

Michelle Moore 24:46

Yeah, that's good.

Daniel Moore 24:47

I mean, that's just awesome. And you know that that's going to carry on into their adult life and continue. The next one is more is caught than taught. James 122 tells us to be doers of the word, not just hearers. And nowhere is that more true than in parenting. Your kids are watching you all the time. How you handle conflict with your spouse, they're watching. How you talk about money, they're watching. Whether you serve at church or just show up, guess what? They're watching. And whether your faith is real on Tuesday morning or just performed on a Sunday, they are watching. The most powerful sermon that your child will ever hear is the one that you live Monday through Saturday. That's both convicting and freeing because it means you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be genuine. Repent when you mess up in front of them. Let them see that faith isn't about being flawless, it's about being faithful. And the seventh and final point here, you can't do this alone, and you were never meant to. In 1 Thessalonians 5 17, it says to pray without ceasing. And for parents, that's not a lofty spiritual concept, that's a survival strategy. You cannot form your child's soul in your own strength. You cannot outdiscipline the culture on willpower alone. We need the Holy Spirit doing what only He can to do in the heart of your child. So pray over them, pray with them, let them hear you intercede for them by name. There is something spiritually formative about a child who grows up hearing their parent cry out to God on their behalf. When you don't know what to say to your child, say it to God first.

Michelle Moore 26:24

That's good.

Daniel Moore 26:24

And this one here, I have to say that I'm a little disappointed myself because, you know, as our kids grew up, there was times that, you know, we did pray, and there's times you and I prayed together, but I probably didn't pray a lot in front of my kids to where they could hear that I was praying for them.

Michelle Moore 26:41

Right.

Daniel Moore 26:42

You know, and that's something I do regret um at this point in my life because I wish that I would have been a little bit a little bit more proactive about that. Because I think that that also carries into later when they have kids, hopefully they will start praying over their children. They'll see the importance of having them in church, having them follow Christ. Um, so that's a very important thing to make sure that that you do that, and we're not alone at that point. We've got God holding the steering wheel.

Michelle Moore 27:14

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 27:15

That's so to speak, and whenever we approach it that way.

Michelle Moore 27:18

That's good.

Daniel Moore 27:19

So the bottom line of this here is the culture is disciplining your children. The question is whether you are. The algorithm has a plan for your kids. Social media has a plan. The entertainment industry has a plan. And none of those plans include raising them to love Jesus, serve others, or live for something bigger than themselves. But you can have a plan too, a better one, a biblical one. You don't have to be a theologian, you don't have to have all the answers. You just have to show up, present, intentional, prayerful, and dependent on God. He will do in your children what you cannot do. Support into them, pray over them, point them to Jesus, relentlessly, humbly, and with everything you've got. Because the next generation of kingdom changers, they're sitting at your dinner table right now. So I think that was an awesome little section to get us started off this week in this episode to let us know just how important it is to make sure that once again we've talked about all this time about keeping Christ first in our marriage. And this episode here, we finally get to talk about keeping Christ first in our parenting. It's so crazy how all that laces together and intertwines together.

Parenting Flows From Marital Unity

Daniel Moore 28:32

So as we continue this week's episode, we're going to talk a little bit about parenting as an extension of marital unity. Why don't you go ahead and start us off with that one?

Michelle Moore 28:40

Yeah. When was the last time you and your spouse sat down? Not to talk about schedules, not to debate whose turn it is to handle bedtime, not to negotiate screen time rules, but to actually align on who you're trying to raise your kids to be. Because here's what we want to discuss now. Parenting is not a solo mission. It's not even just a team sport, it is kingdom work, and it flows directly out of the covenant you made with your spouse on your wedding day. That might sound like a stretch, but stay with me because the Bible makes this connection crystal clear. God didn't just throw children into the mix like a surprise plot twist. He built the family on a foundation, and that foundation isn't parenting, it's marriage. From the very beginning, God design was intentional and ordered. In Genesis 2 of 24, when he brought Adam and Eve together, he said, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Now, we often quote that verse at weddings, usually right after someone cries during the vows, but we don't always think about what it actually means for the family that follows. That one flesh union wasn't just physical, it was spiritual, emotional, and purposeful. It was the fertile soil God designed for children to grow in. It was the environment he handcrafted for the next generation to be nurtured in love, truth, and security. Your marriage isn't just your relationship, it's the foundation your children are standing on. And think about it this way the unity of marriage actually mirrors the unity of God himself, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three persons, one essence, perfect unity, perfect love, and a perfect purpose. When a husband and wife walk in genuine oneness, they are, whether they realize it or not, reflecting the very nature of God to their children. And that's not a small thing, it's a profound thing.

Daniel Moore 31:00

So I like the point that's being made here. Our marriage, only as strong as it is before we have kids, is how strong it's going to be later when the kids are here and we're trying to raise them. And so when we think of it that way, I think a lot of times as married couples, that part never really crosses our mind. You know, we look at, I know for myself, if I look back at how I looked at the day we got married versus everything we've been through since then, you know, to me, going up to the altar with you and giving you my vows, I never thought nothing necessarily about the kids at that moment. At that moment, I was thinking about our relationship and where we were headed as a husband and wife. So we did our thing, we moved forward, and then all the other stuff started happening. And I never really worried too much about the foundation of our marriage, thinking that it was going to affect our kids. That never really crossed my mind. But that's something I think that probably doesn't cross a lot of people's mind, to be quite honest. And we'll let the foundation of our marriage crack and we'll let things happen, we'll let conflicts take place, we'll have arguments, you know, we'll be distant, we'll quit talking and communicating. All this stuff will happen, and the whole time we're thinking, oh, well, we can still be parents and keep our kids together, you know. But what we don't realize, I don't think, under the surface, is that's not really staying very stable either.

Michelle Moore 32:36

Right.

Daniel Moore 32:36

And and it's funny because when you look backwards at all of that, that all started because we didn't take care of the foundation of our marriage to begin with. And so whenever we look at this idea of raising our kids in a godly manner and hoping that they're going to be kingdom builders someday and that they're going to carry forth uh the sword and the cross that Christ has put upon them, a lot of that hinges on the foundation that we put in place for them as their parents. And a lot of that comes from the bond that we have in our marriage relationship. And so I think it's super important that we remember that, that anytime that we come into a situation where we allow Satan to come in and mess with our marriage, and we allow him to come in and pound on that foundation and try to crack it. I think that we need to quit being so selfish sometimes, probably, and not think that this is just all about me and you. This is also about our children. This is about our family unit. This is about the future of who we are as a family. And so I think that that gives you a whole different perspective when you look at it that way.

The Malachi Moment On Godly Offspring

Daniel Moore 33:46

As a continue here, we have something what we call the Malachi moment. There's a verse that doesn't get nearly enough airtime in conversations about parenting, and that one's Malachi chapter 2, verse 15. It says, Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. If you read that slowly, there's two things packed into that single verse that hopefully is going to change how you think about your marriage and your parenting. First, the unity of marriage is spirit-filled. God put a portion of his spirit in the covenant union between a husband and a wife. Your marriage is not just a legal contract or romantic arrangement, it's a spirit-inhabited covenant. Secondly, the purpose God had in mind for that union from the beginning was godly offspring. And it's not just talking about children, not just well-behaved kids who get good grades, it's talking about godly offspring, children who know God, who love God, and live for God. And the part that stops us in our tracks every time, godly offspring aren't just the result of two people having children. They are the fruit of two people being spiritually, emotionally, and purposefully unified in how they raise them. God's kids aren't produced by perfect parents, they're cultivated in the soil of a unified marriage. So, how important is our relationship? I think that really kind of puts the the pressure on us as parents. Because, first of all, if if the spirit's already infusing itself himself into our relationship, what are we doing when we buck against the system and start fighting and conflicting with each other? Uh it comes to a point where if we totally get away from God in our relationships personally, which then gets into our marriage and we pull Christ out of marriage, well, the spirit can't stay within that covenant anymore. Uh, we pretty much kind of effectively boot him out the door. And so then that's going to affect how we raise our kids and what our kids see on a daily basis and how we, you know, communicate between each other. And so there is a lot packed into that scripture that I think we need to pay attention to because the fact that our union from the very beginning, as soon as we walk up that aisle and say those vows, the fact that the Holy Spirit is already present at that moment and is infusing himself into the relationship that we're going to have from that day forward. And then that's a huge responsibility that God puts on us that we continue that relationship so that our kids that we have later, that we raise them up in a godly manner and that our kids take on that attribute. So go ahead and share the next one with us.

Messy Unity That Models The Gospel

Michelle Moore 36:43

Now, before we go any further, can we just be honest for a second? Because when we say unity and parenting, we don't mean some idolized picture where you and your spouse are always smiling, always agreeing, and your children are sitting quietly with the hands folded. We mean real life, like quietly negotiating in the target toy aisle over who's going to say no this time while your toddler is already mid-meltdown on the floor, or disagreeing about screen time at 9 p.m. and then walking out of the bedroom five minutes later as a united front, like two generals who just drew up battle plans over juice spills and iPad passwords. That kind of unity, messy, real, grace requiring unity. Because when a husband and wife are genuinely on the same page, even imperfectly, even after a hard conversation, something powerful happens in the home. The father leads with love and strength, the way Ephesians 5.25 calls him to, sacrificiously, the way Christ loved the church. And Ephesians 6.4 reminds him to bring his children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, without provoking them to anger. In other words, lead firmly, but lead gently. The mother nurtures with wisdom and grace the way Proverbs 31 describes. Her children rise up and call her blessed, not because she had it all together, but because she showed up faithfully day after day. Together, they model the gospel. Humility, forgiveness, consistency, joy. They become a living testimony of what it looks like to be surrendered to Christ, not just on Sunday, but on a random Wednesday when everything is going sideways. Your kids don't need you to be the perfect parents. They need to see what two imperfect people look like when they're clinging to a perfect God.

Daniel Moore 38:48

So that's what unity looks like. Whenever we put God in the middle of it, we unify together, and we we try to stay on course. So I'm gonna go ahead and have you continue here. What does unity cost you? If we are not unified, this is what that's going to look like. So go ahead and share

What Disunity Teaches Kids About Trust

Daniel Moore 39:05

that with us.

Michelle Moore 39:05

Yeah, so here's the flip side, and we need to talk about it honestly. When parents aren't aligned, children feel it. Maybe not consciously, maybe not immediately, but they feel it. Kids are remarkably perceptive, and when they sense a crack in the parental foundation, some of them, especially the clever ones, will find that crack and use it. Not because they're devious, just because they're human. They'll learn to ask mom when they already know dad said no. They'll play the two of you like a chess match, and half the time, they'll win. But beyond strategy, disunity and parenting create something deeper and more damaging. Insecurity. When mom and dad aren't aligned, children lose their sense of safety. Their world feels unstable. And an unstable home makes it harder for them to trust authority, internalize values, or ultimately trust God. Because how a child learns to navigate their parents is often how they'll navigate their relationship with their heavenly father. That's not meant to pile on the guilt, it's meant to raise the stakes. The alignment of your marriage matters far beyond your household.

Daniel Moore 40:23

So I see here how it's just so important that we keep that alignment with Christ like we should, and we be honest in every situation that we come across. Because we've seen wishy-washy parents. I think, I think everybody's probably seen them. And what's funny is as we were discussing here, as you were reading that, the kids noticed. They know who exactly who to go to to get what they want. And we talked about this a little bit maybe last week or earlier in this episode, I don't remember which. But you know, when I grew up, I know which parent to ask which questions to.

Michelle Moore 41:01

Well, if you ask any of my brothers, I was the um spoiled child because if I would go to my dad, I would get anything I asked for.

Daniel Moore 41:10

Yeah.

Michelle Moore 41:10

And to be honest, I did. I utilized that.

Daniel Moore 41:14

You were special.

Michelle Moore 41:16

I was the only girl girl out of three. There was four of us. I was the only girl out of four of us. And so I did pick on my brothers, you know, and but I was daddy's little girl, you know. And, you know, I recognized it um after he passed of like, man, I was not very nice to them, and I got them in trouble, you know. And and I, you know, you just you do, you see that. And I mean, now I think if the kids, depending on what it is, they'll either come to me or they'll come to you. Yeah. Most generally, it's me. And so just because I got a soft heart and I'm like, I want to do this, and he's like, no, we're not doing that.

Daniel Moore 41:59

Yeah. But I'm glad you brought that up because the difference now we communicate versus what it was back then is the kids would come to us and ask us the question. We really didn't think a whole lot into it, so we'd just give them the answer. And then they'd go do whatever. Well, then we'd find out later, well, I already told them no. Why did you tell them yes? They already asked me that question, you know. And then that started issues, you know, started flaring up between us at that point. Now, at least if one of the kids asks or whatever, me and you both, like you said, we communicate about it now, and we both come to an agreement.

Michelle Moore 42:37

Yeah, because a lot of times he'll say no, and I'll be like, Really, honey, let's think about this, let's pray about it.

Daniel Moore 42:43

Yeah. So it gets a little bit of different perspective in there. It does. And there's nothing wrong with that. Because to me, that's a good healthy way to keep your foundation where it needs to be in your marriage relationship. That's good. And and honestly, hopefully the kids will see that because that's what they need to be doing as they're having children. Yep. Because all of our grandchildren right now are little bitty and they're not really to that point yet where they play between mom and dad necessarily. A couple of them are kind of getting to that point.

Michelle Moore 43:14

They know that they can they're wrapped around daddy's little finger.

Daniel Moore 43:17

Yeah. But I think later on, as they get just a little older than what they are now, they're gonna truly understand exactly what they're doing. So and then it's gonna become interesting to watch all of that play out and with our kids and their kids. So yeah, it's very important for us. Um we're we're coming close here to wrapping up this episode on parenting. And, you know, I just I hope that in all of this, you know, this is a lot of stuff that, you know, Michelle, you know, you and I, we wish we'd have had a lot of this stuff in our tool chest back in the day.

Michelle Moore 43:50

Oh, absolutely.

Daniel Moore 43:51

Because I know for a fact that both of us would have approached things a lot differently in a lot of different areas and we probably would have had some better results. Probably. Because we can look back now and we can actually, you know, see some of the issues that was caused because of some of the incorrect ways that we handled things. And and it's put us in a spot too, like we mentioned earlier, where we've had to ask for forgiveness, we've had to apologize. And all of that, when you combine it together, it it's a lot. It's it's real easy to get into that spot, but it's really hard to work your way back out of it. It makes it so hard and difficult when you're trying to help your kids understand that, hey, I truly made mistakes back then. Please don't repeat them. Don't do what we did. You know, try to try to do this the right way. And it makes it so much easier when you can just model that and your kids pick that up from the time they're young. Now you're you're so much further ahead. So as we wrap up this week's episode, we wrap it up here with the living picture.

The Ordinary Moments That Form Faith

Daniel Moore 44:58

You know, here's what gets us most about all of this. When your children watch you and your spouse love each other well, they are seeing something they cannot get anywhere else. They're seeing a living, breathing illustration of the gospel. When they watch you forgive each other and you know, really forgive, not just fine, whatever, they see grace in action. When they hear you pray together, they learn that faith isn't just private, it's shared. When they watch you face a hard season side by side instead of turning on each other, they see what covenant really means. The home becomes a training ground, and the curriculum isn't what you say, it's what you do. As we've mentioned several times throughout this episode, Deuteronomy 6 7 tells us to impress God's commands on our children when we sit, when we walk, when we lie down, and when we rise up. And that's not a scheduled Bible lesson, that's a lifestyle. And that lifestyle is most powerful when it's lived out together as one. The most powerful thing that you can do for your child's faith is to let them watch you live yours, together with your spouse, in the ordinary moments. So as we close this week's episode, uh, do you have anything that you wanted to add to this week?

Michelle Moore 46:24

No, it's so good. I think it's so good for parents.

Daniel Moore 46:27

Yeah, hopefully opened a lot of eyes to maybe some things that are going on in some of your relationships out there, uh, maybe some ways that you're handling some things right now. Uh, I think one of the the biggest thing that we have to take away from our marriages is this institution that we have on this earth as a marriage, it's huge. It covers so much territory, so many things hinge off of how you have your marriage and how you apply it in your life every day. As a foundation, everything flows from that when it comes to family and relationships. And a lot of it comes down, as we talked about earlier, to that foundation of your marriage and where it's at and what's going to happen later in life in the future. And so it's so important, I think, that a subject like this is brought up every once in a while just as a good reminder of what we need to be as parents. So as we close this week, we just want to remind every parent listening of this truth. You do not have to parent perfectly to parent powerfully. Your children do not need flawless parents, they need faithful ones. They need parents who are present, intentional, prayerful, humble, and willing to keep pointing them back to Jesus, even in the middle of the messiness of real life. Discipleship rarely happens in giant dramatic moments. Most of the time it happens in the ordinary, around dinner tables, during bedtime prayers, in car rides, after arguments, during hard conversations, and in those moments where your kids quietly watch how you and your spouse love each other under pressure. And maybe that's the biggest takeaway from this episode. Your marriage and your parenting are deeply connected. Your children are learning about God not just from what you teach, but from what you model together every single day. They're watching how you forgive, how you communicate, how you handle stress, and whether your faith is real outside of Sunday mornings. So keep showing up. Keep praying over your home. Keep choosing unity. Keep pointing your family toward Christ, even when you feel inadequate. Because God specializes in working through imperfect people who are surrendered to Him. The culture may have a plan for your children, but so does God. And by His grace, your home can become the very place where the next generation learns what authentic faith, covenant love, and kingdom living truly look like. Well, that's all for this week, and we pray that your marriage is stronger and your walk with God is closer after this episode. This episode is recorded in the upper room at our Connecting the Gap Studios. This is an extension of Connecting the Gap Ministries, and we pray that you have a blessed week.