SPEAKER_02 0:13

I guess I've been looking for you. I guess I've been looking for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome to Brewing Better Marriages from T South Dakota with Philip and Debbie Sanders. If these podcasts have been a help to you, pass it on to others and let us know with an email and also include any questions that you might have on the subjects that we cover. A word you will hear often is honorable, which means Honored, esteemed, precious, costly. And by saying this repeatedly over and over again in these podcasts, we are combating the spirit of our age, a noncommittal attitude. Make a commitment to your marriage. God expects that out of you. In some of our earlier podcasts, we've discussed about having a home God's way. And in that home God's way, it has three points. What are they, Deb?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Morality, money, and mission.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Wow, that money was quite a subject, wasn't it? Yeah. Do you remember the three points of giving on money?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Giving the our tithe, God expects us, our offering and our alms.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Boy, I just love it when God speaks to our hearts about giving and offering. No matter where we're at or what we're doing, or even helping somebody along the way with alms. Uh I just think it's wonderful. Tithing is a given, and we're not going back into the details of that, other than this society needs to comprehend that these things are what God wants from us. And then a mission. What does the mission entail, hun?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

The mission is when it's not just you, but it's your whole family. As a family, we have a ministry or a mission to accomplish and do it uh something for the Lord, whether it's uh it mainly in your church, in your community, uh with your your children with you, uh working for the Lord, whether it's uh cooking uh a meal or it's uh cleaning the church or it's helping with yard work, or there's so many varied things, anything that you as a family involve your children with you in doing for the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

So, in other words, you don't have to go to South America or to China or to Africa to do missions work as a family. No, you can do that right where God has planted you in your local church. Just jump in and make it a success with the whole family, not just dad by himself, not just dad and mom, but in embrace and envelop the children into these things. And that leads us into our next discussion, which we're going to title Having or Raising Children God's Way. Uh there's three points to that. What are they, Deb?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Direction, discipline, and determination.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

You know, when I was younger, I had an older preacher, A. And Trotter, that told me, hey, Philip, if you want to be a success in your ministry, then you need to stay off of two things. That's people's money, which we have already discussed this morning, and people's kids or people's children. Well, you can see I'm out here in South Dakota pioneering a church, so I haven't succeeded in the min in the ministry as far as what the world causes calls a success. But the first one in that is direction. And what does that speak to us from the scripture, hon?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Deuteronomy six, six and seven says, And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

So you're not talking necessarily when you say direction. We're not talking about north, south, east, or west. We're talking about giving them uh principles for their life, giving them direction for where they should go, and then uh sealing that with prayer so that it will uh it will follow through. Uh direction is very important. And and it ha you send them off for this direction, Deb?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Well, it's right at home. It's in your home, whatever you're doing in your home, whether you're cleaning house, whether the boys are cutting wood, whatever they're doing, you are teaching them, training them, and you let the word lead you and guide you to instill in them the character that would uh cause them to have a heart after God.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Now Deuteronomy told you how often should you do this? When you get up, when you go to bed, when you go out of your home, when you come in your home. Right. So if we're Christians and the Word of God is our guide and we have an obligation to God to follow through with all this, it should be integrated in our lives so then we can pass that on to our children. Yes. Everything we do. Now, do we make mistakes and have we made mistakes in this? Sometimes we say, You just do it because this is what I said to do. Or mom may say, I'm not taking that for a no. I'm not, I'm not no, you're not talking that way. Uh you're not gonna you're not gonna tell me no, you're not cleaning your room. You're not gonna tell me things of that nature. No, you're not bucking up because I'm asking you to vacuum the carpet. And so in that, we've got to inner it's not that you just preach the word of God hanging it over their head every minute, but you're teaching them things, principles of workability and getting along and um what's something else? Uh life is not easy, and sometimes you just gotta push through the hard stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

I can remember as a young child, my mom, one time when I I was said, I can remember saying, uh, but why, mom? Why do we why do we have to do all this? We were we were at the church working and she said, We do what we do as unto the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

And that brings into my memory what was a a normal phrase that your mom used to say all the time. More is caught than taught. You know, in our marriage conference, we typify at this point, we typify planting a tree. And in planting that tree, you don't go out and just stick it in the ground and then hope it grows right. You have to train that tree. And you have to uh the winds are gonna blow it, they're gonna cause it to bend. And so you tie a cord around that tree and pull it over and you drive a stake in the ground. Who's the cord? The cord is mom. And the stake is dad, right because he's firm, he's he's solid, he's not gonna move, even though there may be things in our lives that we don't as a father, now speaking as a father, and of course today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all of you that are out there listening. But um, we we're not gonna give in. We look ahead and see where this is going to take us, where it's going to lead us to.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

And um Mom is that cord, she's there to support dad. And and you know, mom, sometimes we don't understand why dad says it's gonna be this way. There's things we may not understand, of course. Then we ask in private, not in front of the kids, about that. But mom is there to support him and what he says, and yet she's that tenderness, that softness that's there to put her arms around those kids and say, you know, this is what dad says, and you may not understand it now. And how many times did I hear that? You may not understand this now, or I've said that, but there'll come a day, and I am now at that day when I'm getting calls, or the kids will say, You know, mom, uh I know now why you did this or that.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Uh no, you're not going there. No, you're not just driving down to the local and hanging out with the guys or or the the kids that's down there. And though my heart, um the tenderness, I guess, the softness of being a father would want to say, Oh, it ain't gonna hurt, oh, it'll be all right. But I'm asking, what direction is it going to cause that tree to lean? Right. And you see, as parents, too often we don't look ahead. We don't see where this action is going to take them in the end.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

But uh the two that we adopted, Josh and Johnny, one day I ask them, um, what do you remember the most about what I've told you or taught you? And both of them would say it almost in unison. Think ahead. What I'm saying is where is this action going to take you? And that's what parenting is about. It's not about the now, just getting through it. And maybe that's the reason we have so many parents that uh throw away their kids or maybe even don't take an integral part in their life. But you see, you're training something that is going to carry on what you're training. Right. And that's what's vitally important. If God did not expect you to do this, he would not have given you your children. Right. And so direction is vitally, vitally important. Let me stress that over and over again. It's vitally important. Uh our children are all, as far as we know, uh happily married. They may have their they may have their days, but um, we was giving them direction for that day. You don't wait till the day they walk down the aisle with that spouse in order to give them direction. Now, I will give my final words to each one of my children before uh they sign that dotted line or before they make that commitment. And uh and yet all of that direction has come from the history. It's come from the time they were born all the way up until that moment. That's important, folks. Right. It's important for us to give our children direction. And that leads us into the next. Well, you'll catch it on the next podcast. And uh I want to say thank you for tuning in. This is Philip and Debbie Sanders from T South Dakota. Email us your questions at Sanders Ministries at gmail.com. Or go on the website and look it up. It's sanders-ministries.org. Sanders dash ministries.org. Until the next time, this is Philip and Debbie Sanders. God bless you.