Kingdom Case 34: Intentional Relationships: A Path to Marriage | Alexander Lowe

In this episode, Jethro Casie and Alexander Lowe explore the journey of self-discovery, identity, and the importance of intentionality in relationships and marriage. They discuss the distractions of modern life, the value of journaling and reflection, and the significance of understanding self-love through a Christian lens. Alexander shares his personal experiences with singleness, relationships, and the preparation that goes into a successful marriage, emphasizing the need for intentionality and the right mindset. In this conversation, Alexander Benjamin Lowe discusses the concept of intentional partnerships in relationships, emphasizing the importance of clear communication and shared goals. He highlights the significance of involving family early in the relationship to build a strong foundation. The discussion also delves into emotional growth, particularly for men, and the necessity of understanding and expressing feelings. The importance of living in the present and being mindful of life's moments is stressed, along with the idea of prioritizing faith and stewardship in one's life. Lowe shares insights on how these principles have shaped his life and relationships.

Stay up to date with Kingdom Secrets to Sucess by joining the Newsletter -> https://mailchi.mp/a1bc696e54be/5oow1uiky4
If you feel led sow into the ministry -> Case by Casie: Kingdom Secrets to Success (Case by Casie: Kingdom Secrets to Success +) (buzzsprout.com)
Thanks for listening & keep being your greatest self!

Transcript

Jethro Casie (00:00.874)
Welcome back to another episode of Case by Casey. If you're new, this podcast is set to reveal kingdom secrets to success to help you walk and empower you in your walk on the Holy Spirit. Today, I'm with somebody who was born and raised in Covington, Georgia. This guest is an analytical thinker and a man of God. He's married to Shannon Lowe, the love of his life. Professionally, he works as a data scientist at Grand Valley State University and serves as the youth leader at Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church in Grand Rapids.

He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Fort Valley State University before completing his master's in applied statistics at Grand Valley State. In his downtime, he also loves line dancing and can often be found busting a move. I welcome Alexander Lowe, the man of God you should know, to Case by Case.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (00:48.88)
Thanks man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Jethro Casie (00:52.758)
Amen. Amen. Appreciate you. And the reason why I think this episode is important is because I think a lot of people, especially when going through their identity, because I think it's one, it's like you have an identity when you're in the world and then you have your identity in Christ, but then you still have who God has created you to be. So I guess for you, Alex, to start off is that many people are struggling with identifying who they are. So how have you gone through that process of like learning who you are and especially

learning who you are in Christ and what He has called you to do as well.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (01:26.704)
That's a really good point. Where did it start for me? I think first, I don't think I've achieved a destination in that aspect. So what I'm about to say is that I've done it. I think I'm still discovering my identity. But I think the first thing starts with stopping. The world does really good at giving us plenty of things to distract us.

Not that I'm against phones as a whole, but like ultimately your smartphone gives you so many options to just take your attention to where you can distract yourself through almost anything that you're dealing with. And being able to stop and just pause and think, though may seem very simple, really is the aspect of just giving

yourself the space to let yourself catch up to maybe where what you're dealing with what you have going on and If you actually listen to your body or your inner thoughts like you will tell yourself Your body will explain to you the things that are going on with you You will have thoughts come up and then if you're a believer the Holy Spirit will bring stuff to you to address And will bring some of those answers to you so

I think the first piece is stopping. And then I would say experimenting and just kind of going out there and it's like, if you feel called to do something or something inspires you, like, we'll just do it. Cause the best way to find out if it's not for you is to just jump in and go do it. And then lastly, a lot of answers are going to be for tonight is going to the Bible, but

That is a really good piece because God outlines stuff on who we are as His children and then what we are tasked to do. And He's already outlined this before we were even born. And so there is a starting point that a lot of people either forget or don't take notice to. And when you recognize that there are expectations for a believer, you are called to go out and teach other people.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (03:52.048)
You're supposed to study to show yourself improve. That sets a baseline of what you should do being a believer, and then you can go further on what God specifically has for you.

Jethro Casie (04:06.125)
I love that because something that God's dealing with me on is my phone because especially like our generation, not even our generation, like there's older people in my family who like once they got a smartphone, now they're on TikTok and all this stuff and yeah, obsessed with their phones. And I think that's part of the knowing yourself is that's the more you begin to know God too. It's like, know yourself. And one of the things that I need to get better at, but it's like, be still and know.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (04:19.875)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (04:33.666)
that he is God, right? That I am God. it's like, I think that's one of the toughest things to do, especially when we're in social media, you feel like you have to get your own will done and all that. how have you like practically, whatever that looks like, what are some things that you've developed in your journey with Christ that's allowed you to develop those habits or whatever it has been that's allowed you to stop certain things in your life?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (05:02.576)
the first one and I pushed back on it for years. I was trying to reach to grab it but I started journaling. I hated the idea of journaling. Oh my goodness. People kept telling me you should write it down. It's like no I don't. There's too much to write it down. My thoughts are too all over the place. But the thing about journaling is that things look a lot less crazy when you actually write down everything that's in your head because then

Jethro Casie (05:16.717)
Mm.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (05:32.0)
it becomes kind of finite in the aspect of like, well, this is what it is that I'm thinking about. And then you can actually plan out how you're going to address it. And then you can also reflect. I think one of the biggest things about reflecting for me was that I would write how I was so fearful and afraid and concerned and upset about something.

And then three months would go by and I would go back to that page. I was like, man, I thought the world was going to end and I'm very much still here and I'm okay. And I think for me, it started building this, this idea of like, why do I keep freaking out when every single time I'm good. I've seen, and then even for me now, I've lived long enough to where I still have some moments where it's like,

Well, I've been through worse than whatever this is, right? I can remember that God's got me through worse. I've written down about how he's got me through worse. So let me just hold on to that faith and as you said, be still and know that he's God.

Jethro Casie (06:43.95)
That's deep. like that you said that things look less crazy when you write things down. I think that also goes to the future as well. Like when you're writing down where you want to go and what the Bible says in Habakkuk, like write down your vision and make it plain. So I think that goes to the other path too is like when people have all these ideas of where they want to go and maybe the Lord has spoken to them about X, Y and Z. But it's like, have you written that down to make it actually seem real to you? And obviously there's like the science behind like when you write goals, you're more likely to

to accomplish them as well. And then you touched upon reflection. How do you, like when you said that, I was thinking like, the more you begin to reflect on like where you've been and who you are is like actually how you begin to learn yourself. Like I'm a little, not crazy, but in the sense of like, I remember going through a process where I would like talk to myself, like not in like out loud, but like in my head, like ask myself questions, get to know me. How have you gotten to also like know yourself in that sense as well?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (07:40.176)
Yeah, I think I flashback to 2021.

And this is even, yeah, as far as 2021, I remember when I told God I would actually take being single seriously. I hadn't been in relationships in a while. I've been in a few relationships through high school and middle school, but in college, it wasn't working out. And I was jumping from kind of like opportunity to opportunity.

and just trying to do things the Alex way, right? And it very clearly wasn't working. So I was like, all right, you know what, if this means I gotta wait till I'm 28 or 15 years out, 10 years, whatever it is, I'm gonna truly put this in your hands because I keep doing this, it's not working. Let me just sit back and do it your way.

And so when I finally created the space to where I stopped looking, I realized I had all this space to just think about things that were not women, mostly myself. And I was like, hmm. And it created moments for me to see myself. was like, hmm, do I like this? And I would genuinely walk into a mirror and like say, hmm, do I like how I look? Do I like how?

I talk to people, what do I wanna change about myself? What would it take for me to like myself more? Am I the version of myself that I wanna be? Or even more directly, genuinely if you were a woman, do you, as you look at yourself, have the qualities that they would want?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (09:46.928)
I think after doing that over and over again and taking that and not just beating myself up, but like taking it and turning it into actions, I think I found myself really developing and changing to a better version of myself and got to see that just growth kind of consistently happen. And the things that I was practicing actually became a part of who I was.

Jethro Casie (10:13.869)
Yeah, and I think that's the part about like self love and I feel that's what the world kind of gets wrong is like self love is just like, like, you know, stay as you are. But like what the Bible says, I don't know if the Bible says this, but I feel like it's like a Christian saying like you come to Christ as you are, but you you got to change. it's like it's throughout this life where it's you're doing this. And I just did this. So deep that you mentioned it is like I'm going through like a self auditing process right now.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (10:21.808)
you

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (10:31.557)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (10:41.41)
Like, where am I in different areas in your life? And I think it's a part of like consciousness, like knowing who you are. And I think partly, like the reason why Jesus was able to function as who he is, there's like a Bible verse, it might be in Philippians where he says, when he came on this earth, he sought it not robbery to see himself or be equal with God, however the verse goes. So it's like, Jesus had this way that he viewed himself where it wasn't like from a, like, yes, he was a servant, but he was more than that. And I think,

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (11:00.944)
Hmm.

Jethro Casie (11:09.953)
just as we're Christians, like there's this certain narratives that get pushed and like, this is you're supposed to be at a Christian, but is that like what the Bible says? So how have you, because I know for me personally, going through that self, I can struggle with like the love part of the self-love or the self-audit in a sense. So how have you begin to like learn about like loving on yourself and also like accepting the love of Christ, especially when you go through sin, when you fall into temptation, whatever.

might be happening. like, how do you continue to actually let God love on you?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (11:45.368)
Yeah, that's really good. struggle. mean, my wife would be the first person to be able to explain to you probably how much she's seen me struggle and would also say how much I've grown in this. I think first you have to accept your humanity. I think that that's it. I think we expect ourselves to be stuff that we're not or to be people that we're not. And I think that a lot of that comes from our

and culture and stuff and we see how somebody may be blessed in one way, shape or form or maybe they're not blessed and maybe they're just faking it. You never know. But we start comparing ourselves and feeling less than because we're not doing a certain thing. But that might never be in the plan that God has for you or maybe you're just not there in that step yet. So I think embracing

your humanity and accepting that you're limited, that you are flawed, that you will not be able to do everything and you will fall short. And even still, despite all of that, Jesus decided to die for you. As flawed, as busted, as broken as you are, Jesus, our Lord and Savior decided that you were worth dying for. So how dare you say no.

I disagree with that and not treat yourself with the love that he decided that you were worth. So I think that's really a big piece of what's helping me kind of turn that corner. Because I have no right to look at something Jesus said was worth dying for and say that that's not worth anything.

Jethro Casie (13:35.15)
And that's also how you know, like a certain aspect of when you're like self auditing in a sense, or you're trying to craft your identities where there's no love in your response to yourself. Or when you think that God is speaking and it sounds like something that would ever put you down, that's definitely not the voice of God and the voice of the enemy. And I think also in terms of obviously like your father long and you brought it up in terms of going through.

this singleness period of where you're trying to figure out like, like, Lord, where, where's like, where's bae? Where's my wife at? How did you what what did that process look like? Like, what were you like, you mentioned you were going from person to person, what were you searching for in that time when you were in college?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (14:09.53)
Yeah.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (14:18.416)
So before I decided to take my singleness seriously, I was looking for myself. I was looking for someone who was like me. And then I also was double-minded. So I knew that I'm a Christian. I'm not supposed to be messing around with people or whatever. I'm working towards marriage. But I also know I want to, and with that, I...

I want to be married. So I'm like, my heart cares. But then I also realized I'm like, I don't really want to be fully with somebody or really it wasn't that I didn't want to be with somebody. I didn't want to fully trust them. So I wanted to be with somebody, but not fully trust them. I remember one person being so irritated with me. They're like, Alex, I'm here. Like we could have had a relationship going.

But every time I try to get close, you just push me back. So like, nah, we not gonna do this. And I just, thought about how, you know, infuriating I was to other people because I just wouldn't make my mind up on what I wanted.

And so when that pause happened, you know, I think it really created the space for me to say, okay, what do I actually want? And then there was a level of acceptance of, I don't know what's best for me either. Like we think we know what's best for ourselves. We don't know what's best for ourselves. And so I was like, okay, I'm truly, truly going to put this in God's hands.

And my process on how I approached my wife was way different than my past relationships. know, after I went through that single season, I figured out what I like to do. And this was a process of like, I would take myself out on dates. I would go watch new movies by myself. I would eat in the cab by myself. Right. And I was just good with that. But then when the switch finally happened, I pursued her.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (16:35.886)
When I finally decided, because she'll tell you I didn't immediately want to do it because I was about to go to grad school in Michigan and I wasn't trying to start a whole long distance relationship, like that didn't seem wise to me at the time. Well, I was wrong because obviously we're married now and we live here in Michigan. So it apparently worked out. But when I did finally decide to pursue her, I did it with more intentionality than ever to where I'm like, hey,

I want to take you out, want to get to know you. This is where I would like to take you. This is the time, you know, and this is how I would want you to prepare yourself, right? Or be ready for it. And intentionally calling, intentionally wanting to learn more about her and really standing with the aspect of I like you, I'm interested in you. I'm not sure if you fully like me or not.

but this is what I'm saying and this is what I'm doing. And it was a completely different experience for me. And I looked at her qualities and the aspect of biblically what it was stated. But then I also stopped looking for somebody who was exactly like me. Because if you have two Alex's, we're good at the same thing and then we're terrible at the same things. So that means you can do the same action and not grow from this.

But if you actually have a partner, they're supposed to be strong in areas that you're weak and you're supposed to be strong in areas that they're weak. And so Shannon is capable in areas that I'm not as capable in. And it's so amazing how exponentially I'm able to do more things or to be more capable because when roadblocks come that would normally trip me up for days, she can cut it out.

in seconds, right? And then I can cover her in other ways. And so my whole perspective on what a woman I'm supposed to actually be pursuing in a relationship changed. And it's because I actually created the space to really think about long term, will this person work as a wife, not just like a fun fling? Like, can this person be a mother of

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (18:58.924)
our children possibly? Like can I count on her to where if I like have a heart attack or my legs snap in half, right? Will she push my wheelchair? Will she swipe the card to pay the bills because I apparently I can't do that.

That's your choice of a wife is the most important decision you can make behind accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior, right? And I think people are too casual about that. And we've built society about who you like and whatever, and liking the person, being attracted to the person is not enough.

You have to have the capacity to show up as a husband, to show up as a wife. Right? This is a constant lifestyle of work to where I have to invest in her and she has to invest in me. We have a home to take care of. We also have a legacy and a future to build. And you don't do that just by liking each other. You have to actually have the capacity to do things to move your family forward.

Jethro Casie (20:17.933)
And I think you have a very unique experience, especially in like this day and age and in the sense of, think many people, or at least I'm of that cut from that same cloth in the sense of like, I want to be married young and I want to have a family relatively young, like Lord willing. How has marriage, what do people, maybe, yeah, what do people get wrong about marriage? Now that you're married, obviously you've been married for about six months now, about to be seven, I think you said.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (20:45.509)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (20:47.521)
Yeah, what do people get wrong about marriage? Yeah.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (20:51.216)
what do people get wrong about marriage so much? First of all, marriage is awesome. I'll say marriage is awesome if you marry the right person. I think one of the things, the statistic that like 50 % of all marriages end in divorce, like it's thrown around. And then you realize that includes the people who in the spur of the moment fly to Vegas and get married.

And then they put them in the same category as people who were engaged for a period of time, went through marriage counseling, had both families meet each other's significant others, have invested time to ask lifelong questions. Like your, I'm not going to say your marriage is different than my marriage because I don't have the authority to say that. cause that's, that's God's perspective, but your preparation and intentionality looks different.

than this person. And so you can't just take that statistic and group everything together and say, have. Like it's really, I would assume, I mean, I'm also a statistics person. So you can, goodness, y'all want a little statistics lesson real quick. I'm gonna do this really quickly for you. So, all right, so let's see how well that can be seen. All right, so we got two hills here.

So imagine this is your X axis, right? You can have two big pieces of data, right? So this is in the low 20%, right? And this is...

Jethro Casie (22:22.839)
Amen.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (22:35.499)
Well, say this is all the marriages that went to marriage, the couples who went to marriage counseling, these are the couples who did it per se, right? But if you average them together, the average will be somewhere here in the middle. And so if you put everybody together, it's 50%. But really, if you go to marriage counseling, it's like 85%. And if you don't, goes, it's like 30%. So, but that's.

the games people can play with numbers because they don't explain exactly how they represent it or like what the population and the context is to data.

Jethro Casie (23:06.22)
Mm.

Jethro Casie (23:15.629)
I'm sure you've probably seen something along the lines of like like people always say like couples who pray together stay together and all that I've ever seen a stat somewhere was like super low like the amount of Divorce is like a Christian couple who actually like pray together I think it was like maybe like three to like five percent something well, which I think would would make sense cuz Obviously a God doesn't necessarily like divorce. Yeah, I don't think God likes divorce. So I think there's certain things that Like even

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (23:22.48)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (23:39.609)
you

Jethro Casie (23:44.974)
I don't know about this, yeah, I was going to say like maybe if you're married to the wrong person, like would God make you want to stay like when you stay in that relationship? I have no clue. But I was going to ask regarding, I guess regarding your journey to get married, obviously you went through like you got married in how long again?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (24:05.614)
I got married August 10th, so it is going to be six months and a few days.

Jethro Casie (24:12.511)
And then how long were you guys just dating before you got married?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (24:15.707)
how we were just dating. So we were engaged for like a year and then we were dating a year and a half before that.

Jethro Casie (24:23.277)
So about two and a half years total.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (24:25.006)
Yeah, two and half years of prep into it.

Jethro Casie (24:28.329)
what did that prep look like? I know you mentioned like going to meet each other's families. Like did you do marriage counseling? Like what were those? Cause I think a lot of people may be in relationships and wondering like, like most people only know even Christians, most Christians only know cause I was listening to this book and it's called dating marriage. What is it dating, engage marriage, something like that. And he goes through like the different steps and how many people in the world are

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (24:32.228)
Yeah.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (24:52.375)
You

Jethro Casie (24:57.326)
not just dating, but they're acting as if they're married and all these different topics, right? And he mentioned that in the Bible, there's no like specific chapter about dating. Like this is how you're supposed to date as a Christian. So yeah, what's the, what's your blueprint from obviously you've been successful in at least getting married and God willing you guys are obviously stay together. yeah.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (25:10.384)
man.

Yeah, I also feel like I kind of short-changed you on the answer to your question before So maybe we'll come back to that after I guess I'll explain this so for us we dated We did date but This is a little I guess this is a little specific So I knew that I didn't want society to determine what our dating meant. So we explicitly agreed

when we started dating, that we set terms that we would hold ourselves to, right? And we called it an intentional partnership, but we knew that that wouldn't make sense to anybody else. So we still just said, I appreciate it. But we knew it wouldn't make sense to anybody else. And I would still say it still looked like dating, right? But.

Jethro Casie (25:59.788)
That is the intentional partnership.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (26:13.22)
The understanding was no sex before marriage, that we were working towards marriage, that the goal was to learn more about each other and to build a deeper connection, build more of a relationship. And so I think that's the first thing. we didn't, I'm not here to shoot no shots at anybody, but I think a lot of people end up in relationships by happenstance, where whether it was you were spending time with each other,

Maybe you take things more intimate than they should. And now somebody asks, what are we? And then you're like, I guess we go together. Right? And you're going together, but you're not going anywhere. You're just going together. You might be going in circles for all you know. And I think some of the levels of success of this relationship was like, if you don't see a possible future of us getting married,

we're not even gonna start dating. Cause there's no point. If you're just like, can't see it at all. Don't even, don't even waste that time because, that, and that was both of our perspectives in that moment. I remember I took her on an ice cream date to ask her out. I was like, Hey, if you don't, if you don't see yourself getting married to me, like, nah. And she's like, for sure. Like this is, I agree with you. We're not, I'm not here to waste my time either.

Jethro Casie (27:39.147)
This was the first day or when did you ask that?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (27:42.382)
Yeah, this was, this is the date that we agreed to start dating each other, right? Where it wasn't just dating in the sense of going on physical dates to talk to each other. This is right now we have a relationship. So then went from there, did not know what, so we started dating two months before I graduated and before I went to Michigan. So.

In my mind, I was like, man, I really think she's amazing. We have an amazing foundation. But I don't know how long this is going to work because she's never been in a relationship before. And I don't know how she's going to feel about being along in this relationship. But what did increase my faith was by meeting her parents. So I met her parents like two weeks, I think, after we started dating. They invited me over and we just had a good time to just fellowship and connect.

And that's another thing too. I think people wait too late to bring in the family. I think people wait until their hearts are good and well attached and then they bring their family in. And the reality is like you have rose-tinted glasses when you see that person. No matter how hard you try, you are not thinking logically. You're thinking maybe a little bit, but not fully logically.

So what I think was big for me too is like, was like, hey y'all, I told my friends like, this is somebody I'm interested in. I was like, y'all know anything about her? You know, know anything bad about her, right? Let me know, tell me what y'all think. They got to spend some time with her. My siblings got to spend time with her. And I know that I can trust my siblings viewpoint because they're not gonna be skewed.

of what's going on with that. And so I think bringing in your family earlier at the beginning before you get attached, and then also asking all those tough questions at the beginning. So you can just focus on enjoying things afterwards. Like people want to wait three years into the relationship to ask if you want to have kids. And then you find out the person doesn't. There's nothing wrong if that you don't agree, but

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (30:05.71)
There's no point you investing all this time in somebody who doesn't want to go the same direction that you're going. That just creates strife and turmoil. before actually, I'm backtracking, but before we even started dating, it was like, do you want to have kids? What is your expectation of, you know, what a household raising a household should look like? You know, do you even want to get married? Right? That was one of big

You know, do you believe in God? You know, I've heard of couples who do the different face, but getting married together, I have no idea how that's done. I would never suggest that ever to somebody. But like, that's a really good question, right? You know, how do they want to raise the kids? You know, then even if it's like different languages or backgrounds or different cultures.

Jethro Casie (30:49.514)
I agree.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (31:03.76)
You know, especially again, this is more on the religious side where I think it becomes a challenge, but it's like, you know, where are the kids going to go for, you have certain holidays or traditions where it's like, well, the kids got to be here for this tradition. you're like, wait a second. No, I want to the kids to do X, Y, and Z. Like these are things that you want to have that conversation of if the structure, the foundation of your relationships, your relationship is even going to make sense.

And then when you realize the foundation is good, then you can actually build stuff on top of it. But people try to go find rocky ground that's shifting and having landslides and they want to start building houses on a mudslide foundation. And then they wonder why it falls out before it really gets started.

Jethro Casie (31:56.154)
And Jesus says the same thing, right? Along the lines of like some people built their houses on this, some people have built their houses on this, but like obviously you need that firm foundation. so something that I'm curious about too, Alex, since you've been dating, like I believe that God, like in Genesis, when he goes into talking about creation, he talks about like, he created them, like he, them male and female, created them, he, him or whatever it goes. And I think part of

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (32:02.874)
Okay.

Jethro Casie (32:24.267)
truly having our full identity in Christ, in part, maybe this isn't accurate biblically, but I do believe it's like having that significant other, like your other half, as people call it. how has you and Shannon being married helped you learn? Because you mentioned that there's certain things that she's better at than you're better at. So how have you come to know yourself better since dating her, or specifically marriage? And then how have you even learned to either love God more or express your love?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (32:33.744)
you

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (32:48.773)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (32:54.175)
of God more, whatever that means to you.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (32:56.128)
Hmm. That's so good. I'm so blessed by my wife in so many ways. think first she has, she sees me better than I see myself. I am such a hard critic on myself. I don't create a lot of emotional space for myself. I even realize I have a habit of negatively motivating myself, right? Which was good when

I wasn't doing anything, you know, when I was younger and I was a kid, like, hey, whatever you can do to move yourself forward. But I was talking down on myself. And she was like, why you can't speak like that to yourself? Like you have to stop that. And then she really helped me start to build space for my own humanity. You know, I would create a schedule and I would want to.

hold to the schedule exactly, but that's not realistic because that's not human to be a functioning robot. And I try to live my life like that, but she's helped me build space for my humanity. She has picked up in moments where I've fallen short. And she has really just seen me in moments where I didn't feel like anybody would relate to me or care about what I was feeling.

And there's just something empowering to just have that like safety that you can share and connect with somebody. And then it, for me, just takes me to a place where it's like, man, I want to just go even harder for her. Like I want, I want to fight hard. I want to learn more. want to be more capable to support what we've got going on. So I think that's, that is my answer. Yeah.

Jethro Casie (34:55.054)
And I think especially, I think something that when you say like becoming more human, like what I think about, especially like as a guy is like understanding your emotions. Like I'm in a relationship and I'm like, yeah, I don't know anything about emotions. And I think that's something that I'm yeah, a hundred percent still still learning about. How have you gotten to them? It's going to be a tough question. How have you gotten to like understand or feel your emotions? Because I actually think

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (35:06.148)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (35:24.139)
now that I'm with my girlfriend, that's actually something that I'm really bad at. Especially letting myself feel. I've noticed that I've gotten better at this, but I'll still go into things, if something's uncomfortable, I'll just retreat into myself. And it's hard for me to, like my girlfriend will just ask me, how am I feeling? And I'm like, I don't have the words to describe it. how have you, especially obviously you have to be emotionally available for your wife. how have you, yeah, as a man.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (35:28.656)
Mmm.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (35:36.559)
Yeah.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (35:43.728)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (35:53.503)
on like develop that or improve.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (35:56.068)
Yeah, I think the first thing was just I'm believing it was okay. I think for a lot of men, especially if you've had, you've dealt with like maybe poverty or homelessness, you've gone through moments where you can't afford to let your emotions stop you from doing what you have to get done. And I think there's a level of that, which is manhood.

You know, and I think you don't always get the luxury to feel your feelings. And still, I think sometimes we stay in that mindset of, I don't have time for this. When we're not on the battlefield in that way anymore. Like I'm not in the traumatic situations of my past. I do have time to stop and slow down.

And my future requires me to be able to do it because it was when you are in the make or break moments when you are like, you're just trying to grind to be able to get stable. Essentially, I felt like I had a period of like six years where I just, I've been chasing stability. Well, now that I've reached that in the sense, in, in a sense, I'm very, very thankful.

I realized that I can't operate in that scarcity mindset anymore. The scarcity mindset says, I don't have time for myself. I don't have time to love myself. I don't have time to hear what I need. I don't have time to do nice things for myself. I don't have the money to afford to do nice things for myself. And that will only take you so far because that's what leads into burnout. that's, and if you see older black men, like you see them like crash and burnout.

typically in like levels of their 50s and 60s because they didn't and some maybe even earlier right or they have some repressed like crazy Traumatic thing that they're dealing with because they won't deal with it And so the importance that I understand is that if I want to talk about legacy I want to talk about long-term

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (38:18.7)
impact I want to be present in my children's lives, in my children's children's lives, or even my great grandchildren's lives. I have to go at a pace that is sustainable. I have to emulate everything that I want them to be able to do because I can't tell my kids that they need to feel their feelings or address what they're dealing with if I don't do it myself.

And so all of these, all of the space that you create for yourself is important to increase your capacity because I'm struggling and suffering. That's people who I miss on helping as I go throughout my week. And so it started to become a thing where I realized my impact is being affected by my inability to prioritize myself.

Jethro Casie (39:18.733)
Your impact's being affected. Yeah, and I'm thinking about like myself and where I'm at in terms of my ability to, because I feel like that all like pretty frequently and I haven't really looked at it from that perspective in the sense of, I haven't looked at it from that perspective of if I'm not giving myself that time to like be.

calm or be stable or I feel like I don't have time to do things and I need to go on to the next task. Cause that's how like how my brain works. I'm like, all right, I this. I got to go onto that. I got to go onto that. I think that's part of what we mentioned, like being still and knowing that, that he is God. that also that stillness is for us to like be in his presence for us to, and even, even in prayer, right? Cause I feel like, like I'll rush prayer sometimes or whatever the case may be, or maybe I'll even rush like journaling things that should.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (39:55.333)
Yeah.

Jethro Casie (40:15.085)
have that time or even when I'm like speaking to people, like I feel like I'll be in a rush at times. Is that relatable for you? like, how do you feel like marriage has slowed that down for you as well?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (40:27.984)
yeah, for sure. Because at some point you have to ask yourself, are you rushing towards? Like all this is going to end. Like your life is playing out right now. You're not going to get the seconds that have passed back. Like you don't get these days back. So what I think sometimes we have to sit and ask ourselves, what's going to happen for us to sit and actually enjoy life?

What is it retirement? You're going to wait till you're 60 something years old by American standards or whatever to actually start enjoying life. Does that even make sense? Like your ability to move around and function might not necessarily be the same as it is now. So I think there's the question, like, what are we actually in a rush to go do? Cause even like financially.

You know, I'm not making the most money ever, but like my life is stable. What else do I really need? Sure. There are things that I'm working towards and I want to happen. Like I think about my student loans. I want them to be paid off. But you know what? also asked myself, my student loans were paid off immediately right now. that like do something so dynamically different with my life? Not exactly. And again, they're not killing me.

I have them planned out and they'll be finished. But the thing is I'm going to use the skill that I got by my loans way past those 10 years anyway. So it's an investment. I don't have to let it stress me or freak me out. There'll be a time where they're paid off. But that doesn't mean I'm going to wait till 10 years go by for me to just enjoy my life. So I think that's...

That's the big piece is like your life is happening right now. And every moment that goes by, you're never going to get that.

Jethro Casie (42:33.634)
I think that goes upon the Bible verse. Maybe it's Colossians, I don't know. I don't know what book it is, but it talks about, like, keep your mind on things from above, like things like of peace, love, joy. think that's how the verse goes. And I think that's also a piece of a lot of people struggle with living in their past, but I think just as much people fear or live in their future versus being present. think that's something that's like...

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (42:54.629)
Hmm.

Jethro Casie (43:01.089)
Like obviously God is outside of time. And this is what I believe. Like when you're in that presence of God and you're with God, like you're out, like that's why like you can be in church and like time just flies by or even those times where like you're with your significant other and those times are just flying by. It's because like you go to like a different place in a sense. So these are some questions that I ask every guest to.

Yeah, figure out some kingdom secrets of success that people have learned to obviously empower the listeners to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. So what is the kingdom secret to success that you've learned so far on this walk with Christ?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (43:31.856)
Sure.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (43:36.994)
Mm-hmm.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (43:41.744)
seek you first the kingdom of God and all else shall be added unto you. It's a really hard scripture I think to lean into and it means a lot of different things for different people but

I've yet to see it in my life as I've really started going down this path of just like, how do I lean in more to the kingdom? How do I make building the kingdom more of a priority? And then when I say building the kingdom, it's like building more disciples, teaching more people, practicing, or spending more time with God, right? If I make those things the first...

thing on my mind or I prioritize those over everything else. Like work isn't even my top priority in my life. No, like it's, it's a priority. Obviously this is what God has blessed me with to provide for my family. But I think about building the kingdom or I do my best to think about building the kingdom first. And then life is, I mean, life is going great. I'm not saying I don't have challenges, but

man, a lot of things where I was like, man, I don't know how this is gonna get taken care of. It gets taken care of. I get blessed. I'm not trying to preach prosperity gospel, but there's so much in my experience of like doing ministry or serving that I learned. Sometimes people think you need more money. You don't need more money. You need more discipline. You think you need more.

Like you think you need a physical object, like no, you actually need more patience. No, you actually need more contentment because you say that if I just had this, I would feel happier. I'd be better. But the moment the next cool shiny thing comes out, you still feel like you need that. And so a lot of the things that we say that we're desiring are not actually what we need. You know, we, we say, we need to go out and have a good time.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (45:55.802)
That's not really what you need. You need a moment to be connected with other people. It doesn't have to look exactly the way you want it to. And then another one I think I just kind of want to harp on, especially financially, is to tithe. my goodness, please, please, please. If you want to help your finances, tithe. I'm not going to tell you where to tithe to, but that is the first.

The most important thing God outlines with stewarding our resources, that that belongs to the kingdom that he expects, that he's given to you, that he expects for you to give back, and that he blesses you according to that. And then there's even more with offering and stuff like that. it's, I think what I also think, just interestingly, with

the tithe. To be able to give 10%, you have to know what 100 % is. And I think a lot of people don't even know what their 100 % is. So they're just spending based off what's going on. So I think there's a level of intentionality behind that of like budgeting and spending plans and thinking through how much do I actually have so I can steward it over it appropriately. So

I think those are my, I guess, my kingdom secrets. No, they're not really secrets.

Jethro Casie (47:25.321)
Amen. And then if somebody's listening and they haven't given their life to Christ yet, why should they?

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (47:32.272)
Why should they?

man or whoever, I say man as an exaltation. Jesus loves you, you know? And...

He wants to have a relationship with you. And no matter what you've experienced in your life, I can promise you there's no love like Jesus. And he's not gonna betray you. He's not gonna leave you alone. He's not gonna abandon you. And he's not gonna hurt you in the way in which other people have. There's no love like the love of Jesus.

He has a lot of plans and promises for you. has plans to prosper you, not to harm you, in life more abundantly. Things that you haven't even imagined for yourself, Jesus's plans for greater than what you can even imagine. And I am so thankful to be in a place where I believe I've started to really see some of those plans and what God has for me.

And my prayer and desire is for everybody to live and walk.

Jethro Casie (48:52.206)
And then last part is just, yeah, give us a prayer, the Korean Claire blessing over the audience, whatever the Holy Spirit puts on you to pray about.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (48:59.98)
Yeah, please posture yourselves.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (49:07.386)
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for our life, our strength. Lord, I pray for whoever is listening that they would feel your peace that surpasses all understanding of God, that they would be willing to know you, or to accept you into their hearts of God. Lord, I thank you for my brother Jethro.

Just inviting me into this opportunity to share Lord I ask that you would Cover him and empower him give him wisdom discernment leadership consistency discipline or give him a boldness to go out and and and teach the people on the language you've called us to do to Continue to spread the gospel and to build disciples

I ask this all in your marvelous name, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Jethro Casie (50:08.746)
Alexander Lowe, the man of God you should know. Case closed.

Alexander Benjamin Lowe (50:11.44)
Thank