Focus on the Family

Guest (Female): This Mother’s Day, if you feel unseen or overwhelmed, remember God sees every sacrifice and act of love. Find encouragement with Focus on the Family's new seasonal Mother's Day podcast, Legacy of Love. Go to amothersdayreflection.com.

Guest (Male): The following program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and it is supported by the prayers and financial gifts of wonderful friends like you.

J.John: If we don’t live by priorities, we’re going to live by pressures. So it’s making a choice on what those priorities are. One of the prayers that Killy and I frequently pray is, Lord, guide our steps and guide our stops. Sometimes you have to stop something in order to step into something.

John Fuller: That’s British evangelist J.John, and he and his wife Killy join us again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. You’re going to enjoy the conversation, and thanks for being here. I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, we were so delighted to have our friends from across the pond here with us in studio, and they always bring such great stories and they radiate the love of Jesus Christ. And that’s what we want to help share with you and to do that through your own marriage.

Last time J.John and Killy laid the foundation for a healthy relationship with your spouse, navigating different personalities, in-laws, and the transformative power of prayer. Today we’re going to continue the conversation talking about the secrets to an enduring friendship, keeping the romance alive, and so much more.

If you missed the program last time, get a hold of us to get an audio copy, or you can find the entire episode on YouTube or the Focus on the Family broadcast app where you can access all the great content anytime you want.

John Fuller: Learn more about our guests and listen to yesterday’s broadcast on our website. And let’s go ahead and continue the conversation with J.John and his wife Killy on today’s episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Jim Daly: Well, J.John and Killy, welcome back to Focus on the Family. So good to have you.

J.John: Thank you so much, Jim.

Jim Daly: You know, you left off last time with something I want to pick up with, and that is praying together. And the research, we’re going to dig in a little more on that research because we hear so often a couple that is praying together is most likely to avoid divorce. That one thing, if they do it together, compared to all marriage types—secular marriages, Christian marriages, nominal Christian marriage—when you look at it and if that is a regular practice of theirs, that divorce rate is extremely low compared to every other married type.

So in that context, how do you make that practical? You shared with us at the end, but go back and refresh our memory.

J.John: This is something, Jim, that Killy and I have practiced for 42 years. And I’d like just to say to any listener who’s now feeling guilty, who’s feeling, "Oh my word, well we’ve never done that." And in fact, some friends of ours this week said to us that in the 40 years they’ve been married, they don’t pray together.

So look, first of all, I want to lift off any kind of condemnation on anybody and say, well, hopefully in this conversation today, you can start today. You know I often say, when’s the best time to plant a tree? Well, the best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. But the second best time to plant a tree is today.

Jim Daly: Yeah, that’s a good statement.

J.John: You know, so yeah, I just wanted to kind of diffuse any sense of condemnation if anyone is listening. But we got into this routine and practice of praying in the morning and praying in the evening. And if I just quickly run through how we do it. We wake up in the morning, we have a hug, we pray the Lord's Prayer. That’s what we do.

And what’s great about the Lord's Prayer, in it is that line: "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." It's so good just to kind of make sure there's no unforgiveness there, because unforgiveness is very toxic, and we’ve got to make sure that we don’t have it in our hearts.

We then proclaim some promises, we then pray for our family, we pray for our team, we pray for those people who are sick, we pray for those who don’t know Jesus. And we get up, we then do our stretches. I’m just letting everyone know.

Jim Daly: Oh, this is good. I need to stretch. Yeah, go on, Killy. We stretch.

Killy: We stretch. Can I just say to the young families, the young parents that are listening in or young married couples, this is our routine now. We've always prayed together at the beginning of the day and the end of the day and that is our recommendation. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through. If you can get that just couple of minutes together to pray, just start with that.

But no, we do our stretches now because we’re at that stage in life. We have grandchildren now that you kind of need to do it.

Jim Daly: You gotta do it. Okay. I'll work on that.

J.John: So we pray, but also stretch if you can. We do our stretches. We then have breakfast, and while we’re having breakfast, we listen to scripture. So that’s how routine, that’s what we do. So we listen to scripture while we’re having some breakfast.

And then we get on with the rest of the day. And we will frequently pray together during the day whenever a concern or an issue arises. The first thing we would do is pray. And we always pray before we go to bed.

Jim Daly: Yeah. You know, I hadn't thought about it in this way, but again in the research we see about 24% of couples in the church are struggling in a marriage that is not doing well. So that’s a fairly high number for the Christian community. But when you think about it, you could pay thousands of dollars to do counseling, or pray together. It's a lot cheaper to pray together and things begin to happen.

Now, I'm not trying to minimize serious situations obviously, but for those couples that are in that lighter unhappy zone, I mean try, just pray together and see if it changes your heart and invite the Lord into your relationship. It will change your marriage and your attitude.

Killy: Yes, and I'd just add to that that I quickly realized though, we actually need to have our own time with the Lord. You know, as a couple it’s important to pray together, but also as individuals because the Lord does such important work in each of us. We were talking about self-pity and things like that that someone told me it was a sin and I think it’s so important to make sure that we’re renewing our minds individually and our relationship with the Lord. Because if the Lord’s first in our life and the Lord’s first in our husband’s life, it's going to make it so much easier in the marriage rather than the other distractions that we can have.

Jim Daly: Or blaming the other partner. Let me take us back. You mentioned this, Killy, I want to highlight this for the young parents, those that are struggling with time management. We all have been there if we’ve had kids. And there’s a time where the pace is ridiculous. If you’ve got two kids, three kids under four or five, that’s a lot of management. And moms typically pick up that responsibility and dads are helping hopefully where they can. But in that kind of season, what do you do to keep communication going because by the time you’ve taken care of everything and done all the things that the home needs done, you lay back in bed and it's basically look at each other and go, "Goodnight," and then you wake up and start the next day in that season. So what can you do for the young marriage with kids to keep your sanity and do the things that we're doing and find time to do it?

Killy: It’s so important to carve out time to be together. There's often talk of date nights, and actually they are important. And it’s easy when you haven’t got children to have a date night, but once the children arrive it can be a lot harder because you have to maybe get a babysitter or you have to, but the point is to be intentional in having that date night, even if it means sitting down with a nice meal when the kids have gone to bed or whatever, and just having time together. So that would be my first kind of thing, date night thing.

And then I think just do little things. So even if it’s grabbing a coffee and just having a sit-down and a chat to try and communicate while the kids are playing or whatever, that can help. And I would always say to those young moms, look, even if you can only get one verse in your head in the day, just try and do that. There's loads of apps now, we’re so fortunate that will just ping up a verse of the day or whatever. Just try and do that.

J.John: Or listen to worship in the car.

Killy: Or listen to worship in the car or—mind you, we used to listen to Adventures in Odyssey with our kids in the car.

Jim Daly: See, there's the impact of Odyssey! That thing is the most popular thing.

Killy: Yes! There you go, the cassettes, the cassettes in the car. I mean, they were like life savers.

Jim Daly: They were. We're just releasing a new movie. It’s going to be great, animated, along with more episodes.

Killy: Yes! But you know, so there can be things that you can be doing that are keeping your mind... because otherwise I found myself singing the Thomas the Tank Engine tune when the kids weren’t even in the car! Right? So if you can have on worship or more uplifting things, it’s just so important.

John Fuller: Well, what we listen to really does make a difference. And you’re listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. We’re talking about some of the themes from J.John and Killy’s new book, *Marriage Works: A 40-Day Devotional to Strengthen Your Relationship*. And of course, you can learn more about our guests and their ministry and get a copy of the book and listen to the entire show. Also get information about the new Adventures in Odyssey movie, *Journey into the Impossible*. It’s going to be awesome. You’ll find it all at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Let me ask you if we move to the mid-years. You know, the kids are pretty self-sufficient now, they may be in grade 10, 11, 12. They're kind of forming into their little adulthood, and so there's an independence that comes with that. How do you two stay together in that phase of parenting and marriage where you’ve been so committed to the young kids and they’ve taken so much time, which is all good, it's not bad. But many couples can drift apart, and some of that drift is accelerated at that point. How do you intentionally stay together when your kids are right at the perch of empty nesting?

J.John: Such good questions, Jim. Throughout all of this, if we don’t live by priorities, we’re going to live by pressures. So it’s making a choice on what those priorities are. One of the prayers that Killy and I frequently pray is, Lord, guide our steps and guide our stops. Sometimes you have to stop something in order to step into something. But because frequently we’re all overloaded, there's no space, there's no time. So I think we do need to have that freedom to stop something in order to step into something. Otherwise it's overwhelming. Would you agree, Killy?

Killy: I’d say, if you’ve been trying to do little bits while the children are so intense and everything, then hopefully it’ll move on into something. But I think if you can even take something up together that you enjoy. I mean, I gather pickleball is an absolute—I mean, I've never played it but it sounds amazing. But I mean just do something for yourselves for you as a couple. I think that would be really important. And yeah, I'm sure you guys have got good advice as well on it.

Jim Daly: You know, one of the things you mention in the book is this, and you reference it, starts and stops. In fact, the Lord spoke to you while you were at church about doing something and it fits in this stops and starts place. What did He ask you to do, and how did you hear that, and how did you respond to it?

J.John: Well, we were in church and the pastor got up and he said, "Oh, just before the service commences, I’m sorry to bring this to your attention but we are desperate. We’re desperate for more volunteers to help with the babies, and we need more volunteers to serve coffee." And I remember hearing him and going, "I cannot believe the pastor is sharing all this kind of stuff just before we’re going to worship the Lord." And I thought, "What kind of a church is this that people don’t volunteer?" You’re digging your own hole.

As I thought that, I felt it. Boof, boof, like this quiver in my liver. And I knew it wasn’t the pizza from the night before. You just get this stirring like this. And I turned around and looked at the man behind me, and he looked at me like, "Why are you looking at me?" And I thought, "Well, maybe the word came from the stage but it was meant to be for him."

Jim Daly: Oh, you’re hoping! Because I don’t want to do the coffee.

J.John: No! And the whole service I had this like site, the Lord saying "sign up for coffee, sign up for coffee." And I’m like, "Lord, I’m not a barista. I really am not a barista." But I knew. And at the end of the service, Killy goes, "What is wrong with you? You fidgeted the whole service." So I said, "Well Killy, the Lord wants you and me to sign up for coffee." And Killy goes, "Do you think I’m stupid? He wants you to sign up for coffee."

Jim Daly: Good response.

J.John: And I said, "Well, you can't let me do it on my own." And so we went to sign up for coffee. The lady saw us, she starts laughing. She says, "You can't sign up for coffee! You’re never here," because we preach most weekends. And I said, "Well actually we are, we go to church once a month because the other three weekends we’re ministering in other churches." And I said, "Look, we’re here once a month every month, so we’ll sign up for coffee."

And we signed up and we realized we have to arrive early to set the whole thing up. This is not like going to happen by itself. It’s getting worse. And then I didn't like the coffee we were serving. So interestingly, I never had it. And I thought, "This is not good coffee." So then we started buying our own coffee.

Jim Daly: For the church?

J.John: For the church. And the coffee cups, your fingers got slightly burned because they weren’t very good coffee cups. So we bought the coffee cups. And they didn't have nice biscuits. And we thought, "Why are they buying the cheapest biscuits?" So we bought our own.

In other words, we started investing in the ministry. I became a barista and I met more people—I met more people in three years than I had in the previous 17 years. And after three years, I just felt the Lord say, "That’s it." And I said, "No Lord, I love doing this!" And I felt the Lord say, "No, it’s time."

Jim Daly: Wow.

J.John: And we did it for three years. And so it's this idea, Lord guide our steps, guide our stops. And it was a great thing that something that Killy and I could do together.

Jim Daly: I love the back and forth with that with Killy saying, "Yeah, He’s calling you to do that, not me!"

J.John: But one of the things that Killy and I have done over the years is that we’ve run a home group in our home. And there was one time when we knew all these unchurched people, so we started a group called Agnostics Anonymous. And we would host this group in our home on a Monday night with 16 unchurched people.

But it was something we did together. We hosted it. Killy prepped the meal, we did all that. And I think ownership of something together, oh, it can impact you as a couple. And we’ve often over the years always tried to do some things where it was 50-50. It wasn't, oh, J.John's doing 90 and Killy’s doing 10. It was something together we would do.

Jim Daly: That’s so good. You know, right at the end here, we touched on the 4 R's last time, but I want to go a little deeper with the 4 R's because that's really the core of your message I think out of the book. Wrapped with a lot of great stories, but respect, responsibility, romance, resolve. So let’s hit those again. With respect, what are you driving at, J, when it comes to respect in marriage?

J.John: Well, the opposite of respect is disrespect. And we’ve noticed how some couples in public will disrespect their spouse. A harsh word, a tone, just maybe even misrepresenting them, maybe a put-down. And you’re thinking, wait a minute, goodness, you know, we need to kind of say something about this. And I think sometimes our culture allows disrespect to fester in people's lives, in people's relationships and marriages. No, we don’t want disrespect. We want respect.

Jim Daly: Let me dig into that a little bit because that, in my read of that, it would be born out of frustration. So that spouse that is showing that disrespect, there's something core underneath that. How do we as a couple deal with those things? So let's say you're at a restaurant and this moment of disrespect occurs and the other spouse is like, whoa, where's this energy coming from? What's a good way to manage the respect/disrespect conversation? Like, "Honey, I hear you, but this isn't the exact great spot to be talking about this."

J.John: Honesty is the key. There have been many occasions when Killy has said to me, "I don’t like that tone." And she’ll say it very softly. "I don’t like that tone." And it’s like a pin in a balloon. Just that. And then I have a choice. Do I apologize or not apologize? Do I start defending? And that’s a slippery ground. But I think you have to be honest in marriage always. "What you just said hurt me. Did you hear that? What you just said hurt me." And I think we’re not always honest in conveying how we feel to each other. And we’ve endeavored, haven’t we, Killy, always be honest, always be ready to apologize, and always be ready to fix anything that appears broken.

Jim Daly: Yeah. And that's the respect factor. The responsibility, the next R, kind of fits that as well. What’s your responsibility in the relationship to fix those things, right?

J.John: Yes, that’s right. And the responsibility, you know, there are certain things that Killy does, there are certain things that I do, there are certain things I don’t want to do. And so I can be honest about that. I do not want to do the laundry, and I’m not doing the ironing. I am not doing it.

Jim Daly: You gotta coach me. I'm doing the laundry right now for me.

J.John: So and I've kind of compromised with Killy and Killy’s like, "Okay, I’m very happy to do the laundry and the ironing, but you’ve got to do this and this and this." And it’s like, okay. So I do the trash. I clean all the trash cans. I take all that, I—that’s my job. I do all of that. I clear away the food bin, I do all of that sort of stuff. And I think the thing is, compromise is another word. Honesty is a key word in marriage, compromise is another key word in marriage. You have to—you can't have your own way the whole time.

Killy: But yeah, and also I’m thinking with the respect and the responsibility, it is treating each other well. In the end if from the very beginning you’ve been felt like you’ve been put down the whole time, you’re not going to respect the person, are you? You’re going to feel—so you always—I love those verses in the Bible that say encourage one another, build one another up. If you’re doing that, then that shows respect and the responsibility will flow out of that that you’re, you know, that you feel encouraged and built up. And it’s not just one of you doing it to the other, it’s both of you doing it to each other. Really important.

John Fuller: And that kind of lays the foundation for romance which you mentioned last time, something to do with needing more courtship in marriage.

Jim Daly: What’s on your mind, John? Romance?

John Fuller: That's just the third R, Jim. It's just where we are in the conversation.

J.John: Absolutely. And one of the sayings I like saying is if there was more courting in marriage, there would be fewer marriages in court. And I think it's this principle of, you know, we romanced each other when we were dating. Oh, we just anticipated the date! There was kind of joy, expectancy. And then you get married and you don’t have the same anticipation.

Jim Daly: "What do you want to do Friday?" "Yeah, I don’t know. I’m going to watch the game. Let's just get a pizza. Let's just order out, we’ll bring it home and watch the game together."

J.John: And whereas actually, no, no, no. And again, we’ve used the word several times, intentionality. I’ve got to be intentional in wanting to do it, in making time to do it, and enjoy my spouse, and enjoy friendship, enjoy conversation. And again, compromise. What makes her happy? Rather than what makes me happy and she’s just got to have it. Right.

So we covered respect, responsibility, romance, and the last would be my favorite: resolve.

J.John: Resolve. And my new word, resolve, resilience. I like that. And that threefold cord is not easily broken. And with God, we can make things work. With the Lord, we can face any storm that comes. The resolve is you’ve made a decision before a storm has come that if a storm comes, we will rise above it together. You make that decision when the sun is shining. Hence, let us put on the armor of God. Helmet of salvation, shield of faith, sword of the spirit, belt of truth, good news of peace on our feet.

Jim Daly: Amen. Thank you. Thanks for being with us.

Killy: Thank you for having us.

John Fuller: Thank you to both of you. Wow, J.John and Killy are a remarkable couple. You can hear their love for the Lord and each other with every story they tell. Right at the end J.John referred to that famous passage in Ephesians 6, verses 12 through 17, about taking up the full armor of God.

Here at Focus on the Family we want to help you take up the full armor of God for your family. We want to help you be the best husband or wife, mom or dad, grandma or grandpa that you can be, and we have amazing resources available to help you, like our team of Christian counselors, our Hope Restored marriage intensives, and so much more.

If you need encouragement today, don’t hesitate. Give us a call or stop by the website. Or if you’d like to listen to this great content on the go, download the Focus on the Family broadcast app. You’ll get access to all the library of articles, broadcasts, and resources and that’s 24/7 encouragement for your marriage, parenting, and your walk with the Lord.

And for a gift of any amount to the ministry, we want to make J.John and Killy’s great devotional, *Marriage Works: A 40-Day Devotional to Strengthen Your Relationship*, available to you. Your donations make ministry possible here at Focus on the Family, so donate, get your copy, and let’s do ministry together.

Call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. Or donate and get this wonderful devotional and other resources that have been mentioned along the way at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And if you’d like to hear more from J.John, we have an entire audio collection you can download for free. It’s our most popular audio collection ever and you’ll receive hours of J.John’s trademark humor, his solid biblical teaching, and his amazing stories. This full audio collection is available for free at our website.

Coming up tomorrow, a powerful story of how God healed one woman’s heart after an unwanted divorce.

Guest (Female): And he stopped me and he said, "Whose voice is telling you those things?" And I had to have some self-reflection of whose voice is that I hear in my head. And he challenged me to replace the voice that I was hearing of my ex-husband and all the things that I didn't think I could do or didn't believe in myself or that I was worthy of and to replace it with the voice of God.

John Fuller: That’s next time on Focus on the Family. And remember, when you get in touch, let us know how you’re listening—on our website, through our mobile app, or on our podcast feed. I’m John Fuller, and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, join us next time as we help you and your family thrive.

Jim Daly: If your marriage feels like it’s falling apart, there’s still hope. Hope Restored by Focus on the Family is investing $1,000 toward marriage intensives through the Marriage Investment Initiative. Learn more at hoperestored.com/invest.