I Date Myself
Transcript:
Pastor Priji: Greetings in Jesus’ name. Welcome to the marriage talk podcast. We’re excited to have each and every one of you tune in and listen to this conversation, which I’m sure will equip and encourage you to pursue your God given goals in your marriage. Today, my guests are pastor Robin and Sasha, from our church in Bangalore.
We know them for a long time, our kids are best friends. We are excited to have them on the podcast. Pastor Robin and Sasha, if you could take time to greet our listeners believe that marriage is supposed to be Christ centered, marriage is supposed to bring glory to God, would you take a minute to say hello?
Sasha: Thank you pastor. It’s an honor to receive from Pastor Priji and all the various guests on the program. It’s an honor to be on this side, thank you Pastor Priji. We really pray to give something that we have been learning from so many years of our marriage.
Pastor Robin: It’s a joy and privilege to be a part of this podcast, we have been really blessed with your podcast and the way you’ve been consistent throughout. It’s a joy to be part of this blessing.
Pastor Priji: We’ve noticed how you have been conducting yourself in your marriage; how long have you been married?
Pastor Robin: We’ve completed 7 years.
Pastor Priji: We’d love to know how did you meet each other, get married and how has this last seven years been?
Sasha: We should actually thank you and Zahal for this meet up, you had posted a picture and he saw, and you introduced us, I was not ready for marriage due to my age, but we prayed and spoke to each other. You and pastor Rashmi had a major role, after 4 months of talking to each other, God had confirmed this. Robin had gotten a word long back, but it took time for me to come to hear from God and get that peace and got confirmed by other men and women of God, randomly said “the guy you are speaking to is the one you are supposed to marry”. I personally heard the voice of God clearly that he was the one I was supposed to marry, and from day one till now, I think that is the one decision that I do not regret.
Pastor Robin: I had a similar experience, from the time I met her till God confirmed it to her, it was a nervous time for me because I was worried about her saying no. I had the peace that surpasses all understanding, the confirmations we received as was a secret conversation we had only our siblings knew about this, but still men and women of God came to us with details and we had confirmation upon confirmation. So that helped us build our faith in marriage, knowing God is involved in it. Even I was not ready for marriage; God spoke to me on Pastor Priji and Pastor Rashmi’s wedding, God said “Robin, next is your turn, get ready” because I was not ready for marriage, seeing broken marriages and fights in marriage and disagreement, I had never seen a good marriage. Seeing this, I thought why get into marriage and get into trouble. As Paul said “be single if you can” so I didn’t want to go down that path and be in peace. When God intervened and confirmed, my confidence grew, I can now say with experience and confidence “marriage is beautiful, when you keep God at the center of the marriage”.
Pastor Priji: Absolutely, we think marriage is about the person I like and want to spend my life with and we take Christ out of the picture, and when that happens, it becomes so hard to have a beginning or source point or a foundation. If the beginning of marriage is love for each other, that can fade away but when God has planned your journey, as I see in your pursuit for marriage, you were excited to see what God wanted rather than what you wanted. So, we would like to know what are the keys or what you would like to share from your journey that it could help us walking in the unity you have. We would love to know what are the things God has spoken to you in this journey, to walk in unity?
Sasha: To begin with, God started talking to me about marriage, He said you will be getting married soon. So I always told God irrespective of who the boy is, his background, looks or ministry, all I cared about is for God to bring it to me and for God to say yes. Until God said yes, I knew if it’s God’s will, it had to be perfect and good. A lot of youngsters are looking for someone for themselves, whereas marriage is a union of two ministries or two calling, a union of man and a woman, where it’s not like disliking something about the other person; when you say union, everything has to blend and who better than God knows what is union? Because He’s been enthroned and the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are one that is what is wanted in marriage. When I knew from God’s heart and received confirmation from men and women of God, that gave me the assurance that God is in this.
Secondly, when we prepared for our marriage, during out courtship we decided that God has to be the center of our marriage
Pastor Priji: Absolutely, we think marriage is about me and the person I want to spend my life with and take Christ out of the picture, and that becomes so hard to have a beginning or source point. If the beginning of marriage is love, that can fade away but when God has planned your journey, it could help us walking in the unity you guys have. We would like to know what are the things God has spoken to you in this walk?
Sasha: To begin with, God started talking to me about marriage, He said you will be getting married soon. So I told God irrespective of who the boy is, his background, looks or ministry, all I cared about is for God to bring it to me and for God to say yes. I knew if it’s God’s will, it had to be perfect and good. A lot of youngsters are looking for someone for themselves, whereas marriage is a union of two ministries or calling, a union of man and a woman, where it’s not like disliking something about the other person; when you say union, everything has to blend and who better than God knows about this, because He’s been enthroned and the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit have been one that is what I wanted. When I knew from God’s heart and received confirmation from men and women of God, that gave me the assurance that God is in this.
Secondly, when we prepared for our marriage, during out courtship, we prayed and decided that God has to be the center of our marriage, I can say on his behalf too that we didn’t marry for each other, because we wanted company. I was quite young, I could have pursued a career or ministry, but this is what God wanted. Similarly for him; he was doing well in work, but we left everything and pursued marriage, keeping Jesus as the center of the marriage, because of Christ’s death for the bride on the cross, that’s what we are supposed to do.
After Adam and Eve sinned, he blamed Eve, whereas Jesus took the blame on himself; covering our sins and us, and that’s idea. One thing I am blessed to say is Robin has understood what I am, who I am covered me in many places, but not blamed me. So one of the keys that I have learned firstly is, understanding each other’s flaws and helping each other. Instead of blaming each other, hold hands, teach and grow together; so the next time the same thing happens, you don’t fall into that trap.
Pastor Robin: I’ll also share the reason I don’t blame her is that God didn’t blame me. If I have received grace and mercy, I have to give it to my spouse. It will be unfair if you don’t show it to those around you, especially your spouse. One thing that I personally did, while we were courting, I gave a detailed report to pastor Shyju Matthew, who was my mentor in many areas of my life. I kept him informed and was accountable, of both good and bad. We were transparent and open with each other, we shared our ups and downs. I kept dad and mom informed about it, so I had that covering or back up. There are rare instances dad responded to my messages, but he guided me.
Pastor Priji: The fact that you guys are continuing to stay under the covering, continue to stay under instruction and accountability even after marriage, goes a long way in keeping us united.
Pastor Robin: I remember seeing this quote, paraphrased “If you don’t correct a small child, when he grows up he does everything and feels it is right” so, my upbringing was that of a constant correction, so I realized that we were coached before marriage and during these seven years, the accountability part and correction has helped us. If you get into a marriage without correction, you feel you are always right, which could backfire like a tsunami and you won’t know what to do, with all the marital issues.
Sasha: Just like Robin would share with dad, I remember the same with you, being accountable to you and your advice to not jump into anything, because I was not hearing anything. You asked me to wait for God’s timing, if it had to happen it would or it would not. The important thing is having a mentor, not just before marriage but even after, we are very thankful for both you and pastor Rashmi, to share with. It’s not easy to talk to dad or mom, due to the distance, but we can reach out to you.
Having a mentor, a covering, being transparent, not only to each other but letting them know, there automatically is a blanket of prayer or a covering, coming to your pastor. There are chances if you keep things hidden, we have always maintained that, to share things. Even in a heated moment, don’t take a hasty decision, take time, calm down, we sit down and talk out the causes. Sometimes things that happened a few days ago, might have triggered current issues, we sit and think out everything and once we are able to see things, when we take this to our pastor, it becomes more clear. Transparency to each other and your mentor is important, if you hide anything, it can cause fungus or worms or make you more horrid on the inside. Being more transparent, accountable and communicating with each other, goes a long way.
Pastor Priji: For sure, and I have seen whenever we keep things hidden, it has the power to now control our life, dominate our choices, decisions and ultimately destroy our marriage. So, it always helps to open up to each other, to talk about a certain feeling or emotion and to bring it under correction and accountability. I want to understand how you managed to walk together without your ego getting in the way, especially when you are having a correction from both ends? At that time your natural ego would kick in, sometimes and say the other why is she/he is wrong and how do you overcome that voice in your head that my way was right?
Pastor Robin: I think everyone has a wrong perception that they are right always. I always say “I may not be right all the time but I am not wrong all the time” and I study life, especially mine. Like pastor TD Jakes says “I date me” as soon as I heard that, I date or understand myself. We may not always be right, in the first year of our marriage, we spent time with mom and dad and I pestered dad with my questions, I still go back and read the questions. When I was talking with Pastor Shyju, he said something very helpful, he said in their marriage, they never had arguments, but had disagreements. Because the end results of argument is somebody has to win, somebody will be hurt and somebody’s ego will be put down or kick in, but whenever you have a disagreement, have an open-hearted conversation; there is an open window to convince people.
So we took that key and in seven years of our marriage, I am blessed and honored to say we’d never had an argument but we had a lot of disagreements. Open-hearted talks made us understand why we did certain things, honestly speaking personally, the ego part didn’t exist.
Sasha: I think he’s right, we have not had ego clashes or arguments, but there are times when we had silly disagreements. Sometimes there are voices put in your head by the enemy like “why did he say that? don’t you think you should do this?” The enemy wants you to fight or have an argument. Every time we had a disagreement, I hear this line but I do the opposite, take my phone and say sorry. So, we decided during our courtship to talk things over and not to talk during heated moments. You can never calm a fight when you are angry or make a decision, just take your time, calm down and think. So we just take our time to calm down, so there have been moments where there could have been a bad argument, as in every marriage. There comes a time, it does not have to end in arguments, I think we both don’t like to fight or know how to fight, I don’t have that capacity to say I’ve won.
Pastor Robin: I know how to fight, but I choose not to fight.
Sasha: I know how to fight, but cannot do it. I have seen that during a fight one person is hurt, but even if you patch up, that hurt remains. So its better to take time, stay calm, pray at that moment, when voices come from your ego, where the enemy is trying to constantly tell you don’t apologize, you need to do the opposite. Even if you are not horribly angry, take the phone and say “I love you”. We both have done that; we did not speak but had taken our phones and said “sorry, I love you“ without talking. This is not what the world teaches us; the world teaches us to go and confront, go fight. The world teaches women should not be listening to man, you can do what you want.
Amos 3:3 says, “Can two people walk together, without agreeing with each other?” The world says, “you are a woman, you have equal rights, you do not need to listen, you have your own ego.” I don’t think that is right; we are under our husbands, the man of the house. Girls both married and unmarried, its not wrong to obey your husband. Even if he is wrong, God is the one watching over us and He will change his lifestyle. Girls, don’t get into that mode of feminism, it will lead you nowhere and ultimately to loneliness, due to the gap in the relationship. Even if you are married, you will not be put down if you listen to your husband.
When you get married, you are one. Just take time to listen to his opinion, even if it is wrong, take time to make him understand, pray. There are times when he tells me something that I don’t agree on, but I take time to pray. Whenever you nicely, prayerfully and lovingly put forth, he will listen and agree to try out the idea. There are ways around it, just try to do the right way.
Pastor Priji: Amen, because we are believers, pursuing marriages centered around scripture, this is all the more important. We are not trying to pursue marriage the way the world does it, we are trying to pursue marriage, as God arranged it in scripture and that is when we experience abundant life, and the true satisfaction and coming together as a married couple. On that note, could you encourage our listeners, some of them are married and some unmarried. If you could just together bless them and pray for them, would be great.
Pastor Robin: I would like to read Ecclesiastes 5:9, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.” So marriage is two people coming together, and in agreement and for each other. You don’t get married to show to the world you are the best couple or have most views and likes online. I say, whatever you do in God, is for eternity between both of you, stay in agreement.
There are times when you or your spouse will fall, so pick them up, because Christ did the same. We don’t deserve grace and mercy, so if Christ did this for us, we have to do it to the spouse. We based our marriage on this verse, We love because God first loved us, not to be printed on our wedding card or website, but we prayed and believed on that. The only person who can teach us true love is God the Father, who gave his son for us. L-O-V-E spells love, but for me it spells J-E-S-U-S, he showed us love. If you build marriage on this foundation, challenges and attacks from the enemy will come, but these will help you stay strong and connected with each other.
Sasha: In brief, I would encourage youngsters to pursue Jesus first and things would fall in place. Rather than looking for a spouse to fulfill your needs, it is not about you. We need to understand this as early as possible, it’s about the one we are living for – Jesus. When we live with that perspective, it’s much easier. I can boldly say this to you after 7 years of marriage, because we were only concerned about the presence of God, not worldly things. My spiritual father, you and his spiritual father, Pastor Shyju were present on that day, the presence of God was important. Young people looking to get married, don’t listen to concepts like “your life is gonna end or you will loose freedom”; which is a lie. When your marriage is of God, there is freedom and life, this is our testimony and it can be yours.
Married people – though we have not been married for long, we can say ” look out for each other or listen to each other. Try to understand each other’s perspective and reach a common ground. Try something unique in marriage, to spice up a boring marriage. In summary, marriage is beautiful, it’s created by God, who said “it is good! ” When he said it is good, nobody can say otherwise. Just trust the word of God and believe the word of God. If you are looking for one, believe God will bring them your way. Lets pray.
Pastor Priji: Thank you to both of you for joining us. If our listeners want to connect with you both, what’s the best way they can do that?
Pastor Robin: We are called as flyhigh couples. Our instagram handle is robinflyhigh and sashaflyhigh.
Pastor Priji: Thank you friends for tuning in today. May your marriage prosper in the way God has intented it to be.