In this episode, John and Lisa dive into the importance of stewarding our physical health as believers. John shares his five keys to a healthy diet and how to practically implement healthy living as a lifestyle rather than a diet. Your body is God’s vessel to accomplish His will on the earth. Tune in to discover the best ways to honor God by honoring the vessel He’s given you!
[Music]
welcome everyone to today’s podcast of
conversations with john and lisa
hey lisa i’m really excited about this
podcast because
we just celebrated 39 years of marriage
this past week and we’re going to unpack
some things from 39 years now for the
lesson that’s right for those of you
that are single don’t don’t don’t turn
it off because it works for any kind of
relationship correct we’re going to be
talking really emphasizing the
relational aspect and also if you’re
single and you want to be married
someday what a great thing to do to
prepare now before we jump into it we
want to remind everyone all of our
friends to please re rate review and
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why do we want them to do that because
what happens is it helps more people get
the message and speaking of review i’m
going to re
and you might get you might get lisa or
john to read your review on air you’re
doing that today anyway we’ve got susan
who wrote this i love catching up with
your podcast there is always something
that i can learn the practical examples
that you bring out are so manageable and
enlightening you are so open with the
stories of your life you have walked
through and we can easily trust and
learn from it i’m so thankful for that
bless you both and your family thanks
susan that was beautiful that’s amazing
well 39 years is a long time yeah it is
a long time and that means we’ve done
some things right we’ve done a lot of
things wrong
we have four kids
well i shouldn’t even say that four men
yeah
yeah they’re ranging from what twenty
twenty six to thirty five well twenty
seven almost twenty seven this month
yeah twenty seven to thirty five and we
have five grand five grand we want more
more grand babies uh but we learned a
lot of our lessons the hard way and we
don’t want that for you guys we don’t
want you to have to learn the things we
learned the hard way the hard way we
want those things to be easier lessons
for you ecclesiastes 4 9-10 says two
people
are better than one amen to that because
they can help each other succeed so you
know what that means a win for john is a
win for lisa a win for lisa is a win for
john we are not competitors we are
better together doesn’t it say that two
are better than one if one person falls
the other one can reach out and help but
someone who falls alone is in real
trouble and you know john here’s the
tragedy there’s a lot of couples who are
living alone
they’re living alone and and you know
the ones falling and the other one is
not reaching out and helping and then
they’re not understanding that power
that marriage is a power union it’s not
supposed to be a power struggle but we
didn’t know that we didn’t know that so
it was a power struggle for a really
long time all right i’m gonna let you
tackle the first lesson all right so
lesson number one if it’s a no
for one it’s a no for both and these are
hard nose these are these aren’t just
like no i do don’t want pasta tonight
we’re not talking about that we’re
talking about some hard no so
like unpack a little bit okay so let’s
say um
we’ve been in movies before right and
one of us goes no unacceptable then it’s
a no for both of us to turn it off no
matter how engrossed we are in the story
we both say okay it’s off uh we have
been in situations before where
we
we were going to do something in our
ministry and one of us felt ah that’s a
little bit
uh shady it’s close to being a little
bit you know deceptive and if we one of
us says that it’s a hard no because we
it’s actually it’s actually
deceptive in in our ministry do you
remember that there was this guy that
came along and was trying like hero help
your ministry make a bunch of money yeah
and i just felt like he was slimy yeah
and you were like and i remember you
know the his he like are you like why
are you listening to your wife are you
afraid of making money what’s wrong with
you and the guy is in jail now so we
have learned everything that was like 20
years ago yeah i remember that really
well yeah and i i just want to honor you
that you would listen to me because i
did not have any hard cold reason even
though he was a nephew of somebody very
well respected and trusted in ministry
he actually he actually
leveraged that and took advantage of a
lot of people you know women have
something called intuition and so john
has always been really good about saying
if something sounds good but it feels
wrong to lisa
it’s a no and you know then i’ve learned
there’s some areas of my life where i
have some fear and so if john’s like i
feel really good about this and i’m like
yeah well you know what i’m kind of
fearful so i don’t really trust myself
in this i’m just gonna go with what you
think and you know this know for both
thing do you remember do you remember
the first time this probably came into
play was the circle when we were going
to uh bermuda for a much needed vacation
do you remember this we had just had our
first son yeah and i was not somebody
actually had blessed us with this
vacation yeah and uh i didn’t want to
kind of i didn’t want to i didn’t want
to take our son because i thought i i
you know i’ve it’s kind of like
basically i’ve heard of my wife for the
last two years and i want to have just
five days alone with her and i was not
willing to give up breastfeeding to go
on vacation so i said i want my baby
with me and and we were at this
standstill and what happened well god
spoke to my heart and he said is the
kingdom of god divided and i said no and
he said well he said my wife’s
rebellious
the the kingdom of god would manifest
because the kingdom is never
divided yeah and i remember i started
praying that and you know what my heart
changed and i said let’s bring them and
we had a blast and we actually had a
strategy so we could have time together
we hired a young girl that was part of a
church there and she came took care of
addison during nap time while you and i
went swimming and rode mopeds all over
the island that was amazing yeah i love
that okay first peter 3 7 what does it
say it says in the same way you husbands
must give honor to your wives treat your
wife with understanding as you live
together she may be weaker than you are
and that only means physically guys
she’s not weaker spiritually she’s not
weaker in her mind she’s weaker
physically that’s what she’s not more
easily deceived yeah so don’t think
yourself above her because god says
you’re the head of the union that
doesn’t make you above her you are heirs
together in the grace of life but she is
your equal and i should have just kept
reading but she is your equal partner in
god’s gift of new life treat her as you
should so now this is what’s crazy so
your prayers will not be hindered so
what that means is let’s reverse
engineer this thing if you dishonor your
wife you do not treat her as valuable
precious that means heaven will not
listen to your prayers wow so god’s got
your back women if your husband if your
husband’s not being right he’s like i’m
gonna mess with his prayers okay so
lesson number one
if it’s a no for one it’s a no for both
and that’s that’s we’re talking about
finances or things that’s a hard let’s
move to number two have fun
this is a priority yeah you love this
one i do i’m gonna tell you i didn’t
understand this one i was not having fun
i was just barely surviving i
remember like it was yesterday that i’m
on the floor
folding laundry and i’m folding all this
laundry and you look at me and you said
why don’t why why don’t we go golfing
how about i get a babysitter and we go
golfing and i said do you see all this
laundry i wish i could go golfing all i
do is work work work and you’re like
okay and you just left but what i wanted
you to do was get down on the floor fold
the laundry help me out then i would
have gone and played with them so there
was two principles here number one i
wasn’t enjoying my husband and my
children i was just surviving them
number two my husband wasn’t making it
easy for me to have fun because if he
had said come on come on i’ll help you
with that later let’s go i probably
would have gone
fun is a priority what do you always say
about recreation uh it means to recreate
so i i remember in my early days i
didn’t have any fun and god one day
spoke you were really grumpy christian
at the beginning and told me to go do
something fun and i was like no i need
to study and and and i did and when i
came back it was like the bible opened
up
and i found myself so much more
productive so if you look at jesus and
the disciples they are out ministering
so much so that they don’t even have
time to eat lisa and jesus
in the middle of this in the middle of
all this ministry pulls them aside and
says we need to rest and that’s because
the human body is made that it needs
rest that’s what sabbath means it means
arrest it means recreation
recreation means recreation and and
sabbath will provide that for you so
yeah and it’s very very important and i
mentioned golf because john just loves
coffee it could be just going for a walk
uh-huh it could be playing against we
play games all the time together you
play games it could be just
shooting basketball um who who won the
last oh don’t go there we played out and
she gets to shoot two times hey hey hey
okay okay
all right so let’s move on number three
don’t fight when you have lizard brains
so lisa wait what is lizard brains the
world is literally your brain is that
reptilian response where it’s just the
front of your brain it’s your fight
flight freeze mode it’s when you are
totally emotions yeah
it’s when you’ve been triggered yes yes
and john and i
he’s italian i’m sicilian we became
experts in each other’s triggering one
another we knew exactly what to say it’s
so stupid
it really is i mean
you know um paul said that if you don’t
love your wife you don’t love yourself
you’re hurting if you hurt your wife you
hurt yourself so it’s kind of like just
next time you want to say something
really mean and nasty to your spouse
just
get an image in your mind now don’t do
this but taking a knife and stabbing
yourself because you’re one you are
literally one so if you do say something
that is very very mean to your spouse
you literally just stabbed yourself yeah
and probably worse because words are
worse than knives yeah they can be you
know the truth is that john and i were
first married
i needed some time to cool off when
something upset me and you would chase
me around the house
trying to force me to get over it and so
i would we’d be tired again when you’re
tired it’s not a good time to have a
fight so we started something uh
back i don’t know maybe a decade ago or
so that we had two chairs in our bedroom
yep and when we sat in those two chairs
we were not allowed to attack one
another we could attack the problem but
we were not allowed to attack one
another i was raised by people that
attacked people
not problems and so i was more used to
saying you did this and you are that and
john would say don’t attack my character
let’s attack this problem
let’s attack what i did my behavior it’s
okay exactly you can you can you can
address that say that’s really stupid
but you can’t say you’re really stupid
that there you go there we go that’s the
difference perfect example and we
we developed a motto later in our
marriage and it was a really good motto
that we fight for a marriage not in our
marriage yeah and we for the first
couple decades just you know didn’t do
that as well and here’s the great thing
we’re we’re in our are we in our fourth
decade uh i guess i don’t know well 39
years does that make a fourth decade or
is yeah i guess i i don’t know that’s
that’s a math person if you’re not in
the first decade all i know is next year
is the big one and i better have a good
plan yeah we’re in our fourth decade so
during our fourth decade we’re actually
getting to do it better so another thing
is when we’re sitting in those chairs
and somebody
does not follow the rules the other
person has the right to get up leave the
room not storm out or not slam but just
like hey this isn’t a good time i’m
going to need some space you need some
space
this is not constructive sometimes when
you press press press something then
you’re just going to end up with a
solution that you’re neither of you’re
going to be another really good tip is
when you
fight fight
to
understand not to be understood now this
is really important
and there’s a little rule that we set up
i’m going to say this um
that if we got heated in our fellowship
in our fight
one of the things that we would do is we
would repeat what the other person just
said
because i’m so i’m so busy getting my
rebuttal ready because i i am i’m a
little in a lawyer mode
yeah i wanted to be a lawyer when i was
younger when i was a teenager and i
realized okay i need to repeat first
elisa what she just said to me so that
way lisa knows i understood what she was
saying before i i address what she said
and we’re both kind of passionate so we
do tend to overstate things okay and so
what we would do is say so what you’re
saying is i always do this and then it
would give john a chance or me the
chance to autocorrect no not always but
this too frequently yes or or this is
how i feel so anyway all right all right
number four man we’re actually might get
through this yeah be careful
whose advice you’re listening to lisa
comment on that one so
we were in a really rough season and
again we were both selfish we’re both
acting immature and i decided to call
somebody who would be sympathetic to my
cause this was a person that would be
like you’re right all men’s are jerks
you shouldn’t listen to him what is he
doing and i remember i called her
and i’m listening to what she is saying
in one ear but it says though the holy
spirit is speaking to me in the other
ear and he said
do not
ask advice of somebody if you don’t want
to land where they are and i realized
that this person had gone through a
number of marriages was not happy and so
i was going to get the wrong advice it’s
like me asking for directions from
somebody who’s never been to a place you
don’t do that you ask somebody who is a
local hey do you know how to get to this
coffee shop they’ll be like it’s right
there so you have to ask somebody who
actually is going to be an advocate for
you and i want you to know it’s not
because i think that if you had a
divorce you can’t have good advice i
actually called somebody had been
married three times and got godly advice
you want to go to people who are for
your marriage not just for your husband
or just for you because we all have
people that can side with us on our side
but you want somebody who is going to
side with god’s word and growth and
godliness in your marriage proverbs 12
15 says fools think their own way is
right but the wise listen to others what
does that also tell us listen you have
to listen not just talk when you’re
going for advice not just give people
decide and then understand you’re never
going to get good advice unless they’re
getting both sides of the story correct
correct so
if you’re taking notes write this down
guard who you listen to
guard who you listen to even if it’s a
family member if a family member is not
is being biased towards you
you you’ve got to find somebody else to
go to
we have learned and what we developed
over time is we developed the people who
we always knew were going to be unbiased
they loved both of us
they didn’t just say they loved both of
us they really did in the way they
counseled because they always cited the
truth when it came to lisa and i so it’s
very very important who you listen to
number five lise
you grow more in love when you behave in
loving ways now this is really important
i want you to address that okay so i
love i’m gonna misquote c.s lewis but he
said it doesn’t matter whether you love
your neighbor act like you love your
neighbor and the feelings will follow
well that works in any relationship
whether you’re a tired mom and you’re
like i feel like i just want to run away
we’ll just act in loving ways towards
your children act in loving ways towards
your husband or towards your wife and
soon the feelings will follow your
actions often we think actions follow
feelings i’m going to tell you this as a
woman who just went through menopause
you do not want your actions to follow
your feelings you want your feelings to
follow your actions so you make
intentional decisions of how you are
going to act we’ve been married for 39
years i haven’t always
felt loving with john i’m like i like
the guy but right now
i’m just i mean i’m committed but i’m
not really enjoying being in this world
but if i act loving then i start
feeling loving and right and you because
god is not against emotions when when
ephesians 5 says men ought to love their
wives three times says husbands love
your wives but there’s one point where
he says men ought to love your wives
that word ought is very interesting that
word ought carries actions above
feelings so in other words even if you
don’t feel it you are to act it and the
reverse of that would be what we saw
happen in germany back in the 1930s yeah
and what happened was the germans
started treating the jews in a in a
hateful way
they just they made him wear a a star
identified
propaganda slander all that then it led
to them destroying their businesses then
it led to them putting them into ghettos
into these slums and then it led to the
concentration camps so what happened was
the actions kept
intensifying the feelings of hatred well
the same is true with love if you don’t
feel like you love and this is why the
bible says you must love the lord your
god with all your heart all your soul
all your mind and all your strength
so are there days john that you get up
and you don’t feel like you love the
lord
yeah but i get up and i with all my
strength get out of that bed go out
there to pray and you know what those
feelings come really quick as soon as i
start thanking god for what he’s done
and this is why jesus said no other
commandment is greater than these so it
works in relationships it works in our
relationship with god there will be
times you don’t feel it just act it do
what you know is right serve the person
serve god and then all of a sudden the
feelings will come okay so i want to
review these number one no there’s so
many other things we could have gone
over but we’re out of time a no for one
is a no for both so we’re saying it’s
not the husband is the boss of the world
the wife says no the husband says yes
and then you have to do it if one person
cannot come to the place where because
there’s some things i’m like john i just
really feel strongly about this and he
may have said no and i’ll say i really
feel strong you all okay i’ll trust your
judgment on but we’re talking about when
one person is like no i am really
uncomfortable with this a no for one is
a no for both number two
make fun a priority enjoy each other
listen the day is going to come where
your kids are going to leave you need to
have a relationship with each other and
recreation
number three
don’t fight when you are tired and
triggered don’t do that with the lizard
brain thing don’t do it you will say
things that you’ll regret later fight
for your marriage not just in your
marriage number four be careful whose
advice you are listening to i think a
lot of times john the bible’s really
clear the older women are to teach and
train the younger women but what we did
is we go to peers and so we need to stop
going to peers because they’re in the
same season having the same struggles we
need to go to people that are on the
opposite side say yes i remember in my
30s i wanted to kill my husband but now
i’m in my 60s and i love him so you want
somebody that’s on the other side and
then you grow more in love when you
behave in loving that’s so important
actions first feelings follow actions
don’t allow your emotions to take you
hostage and put you into a place you
don’t want to go so i just want to say
we’re out of time but i want to say
thanks for tuning in we really hope that
this has been beneficial i want to
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please please download the app that we
haven’t they done it it’s i hope so
haven’t they done it the messenger x app
is something that our partner said we
want to see your messages get in the
hands of people all over the world and
we don’t want the people who can’t
afford it to not be able to get it so
there’s no charge for the messenger x we
welcome you
to join us in reaching the entire of the
world it’s already been downloaded in a
hundred and sixteen nations in twelve
thousand seven hundred cities of the
world it is exclusive over two hundred
nations did i say you said a hundred
it’s 216 nations thank you honey i’m
doing this all off memory and
the thing is we just came out with a
group’s feature so you can go with a
friend or two friends or seven friends
couples they could you could you could
drive the group i’m actually doing one a
group this fall on beta state and i
don’t know how many thousands are going
to enter into that one but i’m hope a
lot of people do because there’s a lot
of offense in our society today but i’m
going to have a group and so here’s how
you get on messenger x if you haven’t
done it go to the app store on your
iphone and type in messenger x no space
between the r and the x and it will come
up and it’ll say discipleship resources
because there is a messaging one
just download it and if you say but john
i don’t have an iphone well if you’ve
got that’s right if you’ve got an
android go to google play type in
messenger x you say i don’t have
anything like that i’ve got just a
computer well i’ve got great news go to
messengerx.com
we have made this available to you no
matter what you’ve got because we want
to see you discipled we know that
disciples live healthy lives they live
lives without regret they live lives
that will reproduce other disciples for
jesus christ and that’s what it’s all
about because everything we do for
eternity is what will last for eternity
everything we do for the temporary will
be gone it’s forever gone once we enter
into eternity and john if this spoke to
them i really want to encourage couples
to start a story of marriage group they
can go through that with where you you
can do it when you’re shut down you can
just have a small group you can
encourage them you can track their
progress you can have conversations
you’re in charge of the game here’s
what’s really cool lisa everybody in the
group gets the book for free because
there’s it’s on the app and they get the
course for free of course free book free
i mean what used to be that couples
would used to spend 80 dollars to get
the course in the book now it’s on that
app for them
over 100 languages right uh that story
of marriage is in about 60 languages
okay so anyway that’s exciting until
next time this has been conversations
with john and lisa
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