Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and run through this. Let me start off with sort of, I'm gonna do a review. So just a little bit of review. What is our purpose? To strengthen our fellowship together, to call the men of our church to biblical leadership in their home, meaning for them to be spiritual leaders in their marriage and parenting. and to glorify God by carrying out His purpose for the church by practicing the one another's with each other. I know we don't, you know, it's much lower. And quite honestly, I mean, you expect to have some weekends, months where it's going to be like that. Michael, I think, had sickness run through their house. Daniel and Travis are already, they've already hit the road, I think. with their family. And then Enos is not going to be here. And so, yeah, so it's different people just out. So the last time we met, we talked sort of the title of the lesson was, I wish she came with a manual. And this were the main points where you should understand your wife. How do we do this? We must understand the biblical view of marriage, the importance of communication in marriage. understanding the covenant of companionship, as we saw in Genesis 2.18, Malachi 2.14, this importance of revelation to companionship, and then we talked about hindrances of revelation, fear, selfishness, pride, laziness, and ignorance. All right, so today we're gonna, you know, as I'm going through this book, chapter two, or lesson two, is back to school for the rest of my life, back to school for the rest of my life. This is sort of the question. What is there for you to learn about your wife that you don't already know? Some of you, this is probably, some men maybe ask that question. Like, what else is there to know? I pretty much got her figured out. And some men are saying, there's a lot. All right, but what is there to know that you can learn about your wife that you don't already know? And so the two things, you must learn a few things about women in general. And you must learn many things about your woman in particular, okay? You must learn, I'm gonna emphasize those words. You must learn her needs, her wants, her interests, her goals, her dreams, her joys, her sorrows, her fears, her problems, Her thought processes, her desires or motivations, her feelings. I think that right there is where most men it just goes, for a lot of us, just goes over our head. We can sort of get down to a lot of these things and say, yeah, I know her pretty much how she ticks. But that area still will confound you even into the twilight years of your life and marriage. Because we don't know how to ask. And this is going to be sort of getting ahead of myself in the lesson today. We don't know how to ask questions to get to the heart of her feelings. her spiritual gifts, and her tendencies and temptations to sin. Remember 1 Peter 3, 7. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as a weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. All right, so the first thing we need to understand, we all change, and so does she. All right, so who she was when you married her, she probably in some senses is the same person, and in some is not the same person. We change. I'm not, Daniel's not here, maybe he'll listen to this on the recording, but I'll go ahead and be honest with you, I'm not a huge fan of Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages. Okay, we went to the conference together. He has some decent things in there, but I could spend the next 30 minutes sort of critiquing the entire thing. All right, but he does this thing called the love language test, right, to figure out your love language that you have. Mary and I did that whenever we were dating, and my love language was physical touch. But we did this whenever, right, whenever you're Bible college and you're like, you know, not allowed to even shake hands with your girlfriend. It's like, yeah, it's physical touch, obviously. But whenever we took this, we went to this one day session with Gary Chapman in Murfreesboro. And so we took the test again. And I was actually surprised because according to his little test, mine was no longer physical touch. It was now quality time. and sort of brought a realization to me that over time, what we prioritize and value shifts and changes with life experience, with things that we see. So just like that is with us, we change in small, incremental ways. Your wife changes. You know, Priolo tells his story in his book whenever he was with his wife. And he said he knew whenever they were first year of marriage, he said he knew that she did not like... I don't know what part of the country this is, but some soda called Tab. Has anybody ever heard of that? Okay, I've never heard of it before. But he said she hated Tab. And he said that they stopped at a gas station and she said, get me a drink. And he said, so he's looking and he's like, oh, she's been drinking Diet Pepsi. So he looked and he got her a Diet Pepsi and he brought it back and he gave it to her. And she was like, Diet Pepsi? I just really want a tab. He was like, what? You hate it. And she's like, yeah, I'm starting to like it. And it's like, you know, he's like, OK. You know, it was a realization to him to sit in. It's like, this is always sort of shifting and changing. I got to keep up. All right, so we all change, and so does she. So this makes that understanding your wife a lifelong journey. All right, so let's back up a little bit, understanding women in general. So some of these things are just gonna be general knowledge that I don't have to spend a lot of time on, so I'm gonna run through them quickly, that you probably know. Men are XY chromosomes, women are XX chromosomes, meaning we are different on a cellular level. Women have a subcutaneous layer of fat, which means below the skin layer of fat that we do not have, is one of the reasons why their skin tends to be softer. Brain differences, now I could get sort of sidetracked on here because this is one of like a side hobby of mine studying these types of things. Brain differences, the posterior end of the corpus callosum, it is an elongated fibrous part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres. If you ever seen a picture of a brain, we have a right and a left side brain and those sort of one sort of records, like takes in information and the data and the other sort of is our reacting side. It's our emotional part of the brain. And so some people are that are just highly emotionally, they said that they're right brained or left brained. I can't remember exactly which one it was, but left. And they're all like, you know, acting on their left side of their brain. Okay. But Women have an elongated fibrous part of that brain that connects the two hemispheres and which is thought to serve as the communication link between the two. It is noticeably smaller in men than in women. It's the reason why if you've ever seen any seminars or sessions where it's like men have, they think like they have boxes. and women's brains are like a wired connection, okay? If you've ever seen some of those things explained, this is sort of the reason why, because that connection is a little bit smaller in men, so it's not completely, you know, but women, it is, and so they can jump quickly into different, you know, scenarios, different conversations in and out, and you're like, what are we talking about, you know? Women have smaller lungs, but larger stomachs, kidneys, livers, and appendices. From head to toe, a woman's muscles and skeletal structure differ noticeably from ours in a variety of ways. We see the insanity of our culture sort of dealing with that truth right now. Do we not? With transgenderism and sports and all this stuff. Women have also different roles in God's order as well. Not just the home is what has been our particular sort of area of discussion, but also within the body of Christ. There are certain things that God has placed women to do, certain things God has placed men to do within that role. So let's talk about understanding your wife. Your job is to understand her. It is to understand the distinctive and idiosyncratic qualities that form her individuality. Okay, you probably know that your wife has certain things that she does that makes her different. They may make you laugh, they may get on your nerves. Michael, hey, get you a plate of food, we already started. Just please, there's plenty there. Plenty there, Luke said. Just so everybody's, if anybody's listening on the recording, Michael just came in. All right. So I remember going through this when we first got married, like learning these little things that now that we're married, like, oh, this annoys me. And, you know, thinking of like ways to talk about this without it blowing up. And then I eventually like said, okay. Just never gonna talk about it. But we all know that. There's these idiosyncrasies. And the funny thing is you have them too, right? You have them too and she's learned to deal with them with you. The personality flaws, which are inconsistent with the character of Christ, you will need to patiently and lovingly cleanse by washing her with the water of the word. according to Ephesians 5.26. If you're a little unsure about that, don't worry about it. We're going to have an entire lesson about that subject, about your role as a husband to wash her with the water of the Word. The characteristics that are irksome to you but not inconsistent with Scripture, you may have to learn to lovingly tolerate, showing forbearance to her in love, according to Ephesians 4.2. So, this is where we're going to spend most of the time. A great starting point is learning how to ask the right questions. So, what you got there is the questions that I'm going to go through, okay? So, these are things that, I'll give this, how are you junior? Good. Good. All right, so these are 10 or 11 questions, I think, 11 questions that he puts. If you have the book, it's on page 49. 11 questions. Now, let me say this. This may not be wise to try to ask all 11 questions in one sitting. Do not intend and plan on saying, all right, I have 11 questions, let's sit down and talk about this 30 minutes before we go to bed. In fact, it may be wise for you to do this, plan on dealing with one question at a time, or there's some questions that sort of flow from whatever her answer is with that, so maybe two to three questions at a time, but do this. send a text message to her or tell her at the beginning of the day, hey, here's a question I want to ask you whenever we can talk about it tonight. I want you to think about it today. Because if your wife is in any way small or large like mine, then you're going to sit down and ask her the question. And she has no idea this question is coming. It's like, oh, I don't know. And you'd be like, oh, so I don't need to change? All right, we're good. You know, all right, but she'll need time to process it. She'll need time to think through it to give you some valid answers and feedback. All right, so question number one, if you could change three things about me in order to make me more Christ-like, what would you change? I know this is similar to the question I gave you last week or last month, but if you could change three things about me in order to make me more Christ-like, what would you change? All right, so these are more qualities that are spiritual. The next question is not necessarily qualities that make you more spiritual, but sort of just habits that she lives with. All right, so question number two is, do I have any other annoying mannerisms or irritating idiosyncrasies that you would like to see me change? Okay, now you're gonna have to prepare yourself. Because you may have a valid reason for this, and you may think that she has zero reason for even saying what she's gonna say. So you have to prepare yourself for responding, okay? But these are good conversation topics for you. And I dare say with some of the wives I see represented by you guys, there's a good chance that as she answers these for you, she's probably gonna turn around and say, well, what about me? She wants to hear from you about the same question about herself. So maybe think through that too. Or it may be something's like, okay, you know what? We'll answer that question another evening, but this tonight, I wanna focus on this instead of getting distracted. Think through that and use some wisdom there. Number three, how does it make you feel when I name something that you know displeases her? So whatever type of answer that she gives you, You're asking her, how does it make you feel when I do that? That's important. That's huge. What's the most important word in that question? Feel. See, we tend to be a lot of times, not all men, but a lot of times men seem to be very data gatherers, you know, logical thinkers, you know, point A, B, conclusion, right? And while we do have emotions and we do have feelings, we tend to not really, maybe it's our training, maybe it's the way we brought up, but we don't tend to really think too much about them, all right? But you have to understand the way your wife's mind works, she's not separating those two distinctions. So what she is feeling is just as important as what she's thinking, because most commonly, what she's feeling is driving what she's thinking, okay? And you want to get at knowing the heart of your wife, you need to be asking this question. How does she feel? Because is what she's particularly feeling truth? No, not always, not always. And see, that's what happens a lot of times in our brains. We hear how she feels, And we say, well, that's not the case. And we start doing what? We start throwing logic at the situation. But what have we just done? We haven't listened to her. It may not be what was done or what was said. But what we've missed in the process is that what was said and what was done, whether that's accurate, made her feel this way. And if you love your wife, you need to come to the realization and the reality that you have made this person that you love dearly feel this way. And instead of trying to correct her and saying you shouldn't feel this way because that's not accurate, you need to listen to the feelings that she has. Because that's really what she's wanting. I'm getting ahead of myself. I've got something to read about that. Number four. What goes through your mind? You're asking her this. What goes through your mind? So the first question was feelings. Now we're talking about what? thinking, all right? What goes through your mind when I name something that you know displeases her? So whatever feedback she gives you, then you ask her this. What goes through your mind when that does? So you've asked her about feelings. Now this is going to shock you, probably, because you're probably thinking, oh, it should be the same answer. It may not be the same answer. And that's probably going to be like, what? If you feel this way but you're thinking this way, that makes no sense to me. But what are you trying to do? You're trying to understand her. These are inroads. Think about a map. You're following a map of trying to understand her. And so these questions are going to lead that to that. You should be looking again to see the impact that your behavior, sinful or otherwise, has had on your wife. First and foremost, you must be willing to get any beams out of your own eye to confess and forsake the sin in your life that she is disclosing to you. One thing that is interesting too, this is going to be a practice that you're going to have to learn. All right, and this is something that I'm still learning that I've picked up in doing counseling. And a lot of times, I ask questions in the counseling room, not necessarily for there to get, you know, the point of information they're giving me about the situation. The answer that they're telling me is revealing something about themselves And that's what I'm gathering data on. I'm not necessarily trying to get at what the truth of the matter is situation in that particular moment. I'm wanting to know, because the way they're interpreting things and the answer that they give is going to reveal something about their heart or their mind or how they're processing things. I'll give you an example. I was counseling a couple, and they were telling me about their family. They were telling me about a daughter who's just like, three kids and a divorce happened. Two of the kids seem to be okay, but the middle one is just struggling immensely through the whole thing and they just can't figure out why. So I'm asking questions, asking questions, asking questions about the situation. But actually what I'm picking up is through the responses of the mother, I'm picking up information about her. So I'm gathering data about the daughter's situation, but I'm picking up information about her, about how she's handling the thing. And so when you go to these questions, yes, you're looking for the answers, you're gathering, you're taking account some of this thing, but what is it revealing to you about her? How does she respond to things? How does she pick up on things? You know, how does she handle certain things and what does that make her do? All right, so you're learning and figuring out what it reveals to her about the situation. Be on guard. Now, and I'm gonna take a sort of parenthetical right here because I need to say this. Because some of you, not big deal. Some of you, it will be a big deal. So you need to be on guard in going through this process with your wife and asking these questions for allowing for unbiblical self-talk arising in the process. Say, what are you talking about? Well, you're going to be asking her questions, and you're going to be allowing this, I say allowing, you're not, you know, under controlling her, but you're, the circumstances and the situation that you've sort of set up is allowing her to be 100% honest with you, where she is thinking, I would never say this to him because he would get really mad. And you're allowing that circumstance to play out. So there's going to be emotions that rise up and there's going to be things that are going to pop in your head from hearing the data that's coming from her mouth that's going to start saying things like this. I'll probably make a fool out of myself. If people don't love me, I will be miserable. I can't control my emotions. I must strive to be better than others. These are all things that we say to ourselves that are lies. They're not biblical truth. It's wrong to show weakness. I should never hurt anyone. Is that true? You should never hurt anyone. No. Sometimes we understand that giving truth hurts people. So that's a lie. We must have the truth, right? When a doctor is doing surgery, is he going to end up hurting the patient? Yes, because some of you that's had surgery says, I hurt quite a bit after the surgery was over. Yeah. All right. So, you know, there is, but there was in the pain, there was good results that came from it. I can't do something unless I fill up to it. Lie. That's a lie we tell ourselves. Because God's word commands us to do things whether we feel it or not. Actually, the proper mode of things is doing things and allowing our feelings to catch up to what we know we should be doing. Not be driven by our feelings. I'll never change. Lie. I'll never win victory over that habit. That's a lie. I'm a failure. That's a lie. Do we fail at things? Yes. Does failing at one thing equal being a total failure? No. See, these are lies that we tell ourselves. I'll never forgive them. My marriage will never work out. She will never change. I just know that I'm going to say something that will embarrass me. These are all lies. These are negative lies, self-talk. And what should we be doing? Philippians 4, 8, right? Whatever things are true, whatever things are just, Think, and he says after going through that list, he says, think on these things. See, we need to be replacing that with truth. Getting rid of those lies and replacing that with truth. All right, so back to these questions. Number five. What do you want from me that I'm not giving you at the moment that I, and to name something, you do that you know, whatever feedback she gives you about what displeases her, what do you want, what would you like from me that I'm not giving you at the moment when I'm doing this? Okay, what's the reason for this question? Well, I've sort of alluded to it several times, that we stop behavior we shouldn't be doing, not by just merely stopping it, but the biblical process is replacing it, right? We call it the put-off, put-on principle, right? We're putting off something. What you're doing here is that if you've already established certain things that you'd like to stop doing within the relationship, then what you need to do is search for information on what you can do in its place. So that's the reason for this question. It is the replacement of what is the put off. This question goes beyond feelings and thoughts and helps you obtain information about her motives. What would she like to see? Hebrews 4. Let me turn there. I love this verse. You know, Psalm 19 puts an end at any argument that anything else can be more helpful than the Bible, I think. But in case there's any doubt, Hebrews 4.12, For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Have you ever heard in your time in church, don't judge not, lest you be judged, you know, that we shouldn't judge people, okay? Misunderstood passage a lot of times. We are biblically supposed to judge. In fact, the interesting thing is that the world flips this around, all right? So biblically, we are to make judgments. We should make judgments, right? We see somebody murder somebody and it's undeniable proof that they murdered somebody. To make the judgment of you murdered that person and you're a murderer is a true and righteous judgment. It's an accurate judgment, right? What we cannot do is that we, and we have to be very careful of, is judge motives. That's the thing we gotta be careful of, because what are we doing then? We're judging that person's heart. So what we have to be careful of is, oh, you murdered that person because, unless that motive is just completely, well, lesson's over. Unless that person is completely, unless the motive is completely clear. But you know what the world does? Are they all over the place? Okay. I don't see it. What the world does is it flips that around, all right? The world says, don't judge me, don't judge my actions, don't judge me at all. But what do they then want to do? They want to judge everybody's motives, right? This is a hate crime. Yeah, they flip that on that. And you know what happens a lot of times? You know what the world does in their deception? Many times what you see in the Bible as biblical truths and the biblical order of things, the world always tends to flip it. And it does that with judging. All right, so you're wanting to get at the heart here with asking some of these questions with your wife, but you have to understand This is where it comes into your role. You need to know scripture. Because what is the only thing that can really get to the heart, thoughts, and intentions of your wife's heart? It's God's word. It's God's word. Unless she reveals them to you verbally or clearly, it's God's word. All right, so you need to know God's word. and you need to help her with God's Word because it is those things when you give her God's Word, not in a, you know, this is what the Bible says, woman, do it. You know, not in that kind of manner, but you're giving her God's Word and allowing God's Word to access her. There's many times Mary will come to me and she'll say, I don't know, John, do you think I'm being this way? Do you think I'm being this way? And I'm thinking, okay, sirens are going off. John, tread lightly here. Be very careful. So what I've tried to practice then is say, well, Mary, I don't know. But Bible says this. and quote scripture to her that may apply to the situation and allow the word of God sort of to do its work. Sometimes she said, okay, well, yeah, maybe this. And then she'd be like, oh. And then I feel bad. I'm like, oh, but don't worry about it, baby. You know, and I feel so guilty and everything, but like that just made her feel bad. But it's the word of God that's actually doing the work on her heart and not me. Now, can you use the Word of God manipulatively? Yes. I've seen this a lot in churches, and you have to be very careful about doing it at home, okay? An understanding husband is one who makes every reasonable effort to give his wife not only what she needs, but also what she lawfully desires, provided he can do so without sinning. So that's a strong statement. Well, what does Ephesians 5 tell us that we should love our wives as? That's Christ. What does Romans 8 tell us that Christ does? In His love, He gives us freely all things that He can. Romans 8 32, totally paraphrase that. Number six, what specifically would you like to see me do to change in the area that has been aforementioned? Warning, do not ask this question unless you are absolutely committed to making every reasonable effort to change, either by implementing her suggestion or by coming up with your own biblically-based ones. Number seven, on a scale of one to 10, how would you rate our marriage at this moment? This goes back to what I was sort of talking about, about what this is gonna reveal to you about her heart. Because depending on the day, that number may be different. Okay, so it's not necessarily an accurate reading of where your marriage really is. What is it? It's a reading of where she is. Okay. It's like, wait a second, are the wives hearing this? All right, the question is designed to give you some idea of how well you are doing at fulfilling your responsibilities as a husband. And as a Christian husband, you may not allow anything short of your relationship with Christ to become more of a priority than ministering to your wife. Let me say that again. As a Christian husband, you may not allow anything short of your relationship with Christ to become more of a priority than ministering to your wife. What are things that we can allow to become more of a priority than ministering to our wives? Career. We have some in our church that are business owners. Is it wrong to have a zeal and an entrepreneurship in your business? Heck no. Is it wrong to allow that to become more of a priority than ministering to your wife? Yes. Ministry. You know, we must build a bigger church. We must have a sizable ministry. You know, those are sort of misplaced motivations. What about a more well-placed motivation? Just really want to help people see Christ. But, am I or are some of us allowing that to get in the way of ministering to our wives? I understand that I'm saying this to myself. Okay. I'm letting this work on me as well. Okay. And I don't want to be a hypocrite in this because as I studied this the past couple of days and then Mary got a migraine last night or yesterday evening and then through the day, I've not had the time to go through any of these questions of hers. So I'm planning on doing this as well with her over the next month. Okay. So this is something that I'm not standing over you in these areas. I'm standing with you, okay? Number eight, what would it take to make our marriage a 10? You may get good insight here, good feedback, but also again, it's a revealing question. You're seeing what is in her heart. This is what you're getting in this kind of question right here. You're finding out what she values as important as it concerns your marriage. And that's valuable information, guys. Valuable information. Number nine, what is your opinion about, name something you have never asked her opinion about before. I hope that your wife's relationship and yours and her responsibilities do not just concern Raising kids and cleaning house. She needs to be very much involved in allowing her to express her gifts. Guys, your wives have wisdom. And you're a fool if you don't use it. Just about everything I think through when it comes to this church, I bounce off of her first. Everything. She's sort of like my filter. Almost. Like I bring up a question and if she doesn't say no, she's thinking about some aspect that I haven't thought about. Well, what about this person? Oh, you're right. That's gonna be a bad idea. Then I know I can take that idea to the leadership and talk to the other guys about it. And then before that, then we go to the church. Because she has such wisdom in a lot of these areas. Your wives do too. Some of you have businesses. I'm talking to those guys that aren't here as well. Some of you have businesses. Do you ask your wife about business matters? Or do you think, oh, she knows nothing about that? This is interesting. You want to get an inside glimpse of a woman's head. I thought Priolo did a fantastic job here, OK? So he writes this out. And he explains, this is sort of the way the train of thought goes with a woman that's being treated this way. Listen to this. My heart is filled with all kinds of valuable things. I have many good ideas, beliefs, convictions, plans, hopes, and dreams. Who I am as a person is related to what I think in my heart. In fact, who I am in my heart is who I am as a person before God. It's the real me. My husband doesn't seem to care about what's in my heart. I guess that means he doesn't care about me. Maybe it's because he doesn't like what he's heard me tell him from my heart. If he doesn't like me, then he doesn't really like me or doesn't like the real me. When he rejects what is in my heart, he rejects me. I feel so rejected and hurt because I realize now that my husband doesn't love me. Now our minds are like, what? No. A doesn't equal B. But what you're seeing is the logic that flows in her brain. And when you dismiss certain things, those things just start playing the gamut in her mind about those things. Now, if you're not interested in your wife's opinion, Briolo says this, then according to the Bible her conclusion is partially right. You don't really love her. What does 1 Corinthians 13 teach us about love? It does not seek its own. It wants the best for others. It's interested in the well-being of others. It's interested in that other person. All right, here's a good one. Now, after you've gone through the surgery process of a lot of these really tough topics and situations and questions, number 10, what personal goals do you have for your life and how can I help you achieve them? Have you ever asked your wife that question? Or maybe you think, oh, no, just raising good kids is her goal. Is that your goal for her? By the way, let me say this, when it comes to cleaning house and raising kids, that's not her sole responsibility. I sort of teach it this way. It's yours. What is she? What does the Bible call your wife? Your helper. All of it is your responsibility. She helps you with it. It means that when you come home, whether you're tired or not, it doesn't mean, oh, this is her domain and this is mine. It means, no, it's all your domain. She helps you. So whose responsibility is it to wash dishes? To sweep the floor? To take out the trash? It's yours. You're just blessed for her to help you. Okay? That may not be for anybody here. Maybe for the recording. because I know some of you here, all right? So what personal goals do you have for your life, and how may I help you achieve them? Husbands sometimes make the mistake of selfishly expecting their wives not to do anything except that which relates to being wives and the mothers of their children. Yes, those are her primary God-given responsibilities. However, if she does them satisfactorily, what biblical basis do you have to keep her from involving herself in other biblically lawful pursuits? You know what the Bible teaches should be the main, within the church, is how discipleship should go with the women? Titus 2. The older women are supposed to disciple the younger women. What do we find in most churches? And can I say this? I think to a large degree at our church, the older women have this attitude. Very, very sad and shameful state of the church, correct? So the ladies are getting ready to start this Bible study small group. And my wife have talked about this extensively, all right? So this is what I told her. I said, this is what I want you to tell the ladies. This is our heart for this, all right? Because we're in a situation where we don't necessarily have a Titus 2 situation, I said, you're meeting with a group of 30-something and sometimes 20-something moms. This is your training ground to become those older ladies that 10, 15 years from now, we have that in this church to then teach the younger ladies. And so I say that to you because are your wives becoming that and how are you helping them? All right, and the last question. Do you have any needs or desires that you believe I ought to be meeting or fulfilling better than I am, and what are they? So now you see why I said don't try to ask all 11 questions in one sitting. This is some heavy stuff, okay? And it may, if it turns into a fight and you come to me and say, John, we had a fight over this, okay? First of all, I'm gonna say I apologize, all right? But use wisdom, use discretion, maybe you should just handle one. But prepare yourself before you ask it to listen, okay? And then think through your response, all right? So what's your assignment? Turn to Proverbs 20 verse five. Turn to Proverbs 20 verse 5. Proverbs chapter 20 verse 5 says this, the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. All right, I know that says that a purpose in a man's heart, let's sort of take the application. You're to be a man of understanding to draw out your wife's heart. All right, so I'd like to give you a passage to work on and memorize each month. This is that passage for this lesson, Proverbs 20, verse 5. Start working on these questions this month. So I gave you all a sheet to do that, to take home. And then pray through Psalm 139, 23, and 24. I love this Psalm, and I love praying it. Search me, O God, see if there be any wicked way in me. Okay? Pray through those last two verses of Psalm 139 as you prepare to go through this. All right? And I'm telling you, I'll be walking with you in it because I'm going to be working on this this month as well. Okay? So you may see me doing a lot of public repentance. I don't know. But yeah, that's sort of where we're going to stop. Now, I know this is heavy stuff. And some of you may feel the weight of this responsibility. And if that's the case, good. Because I think that some of the deception of the devil in culture and in Christian culture is that men have it good and women just have to be poor submission. Poor women have to submit and be slaves. Brothers, the truth of God's word is so different than that. Oh, our responsibility is a heavy responsibility. And if you're not feeling that weight and sitting there thinking, I'm glad I'm the man. Oh, you know, I get to do it. No, you've missed it completely. OK, let's pray. And I'm going to eat. Father, thank you so much for all that you've done for us. Thank you for your Word and thank you for your truth to guide us. Father, I pray for these men. I pray for the ones that will get a chance to listen to this later. And I pray that you will work on their hearts. I pray that you'll work in their marriages. I pray that you will supernaturally work with emotions in the moment as they start working through these questions. Give them, let the Holy Spirit sort of control them during that time so these types of situations do not turn into arguments and fights, but growing points to where they can grow closer to their wives and grow closer to you in the process. Help them, Father, help me to understand our wives. help us to be deliverers of your grace and your love and your glory to our wives. We love you and we give you praise in Jesus name. Amen.