Practical Faith For Loving Your Wife Well

What kind of husband do you want to become—and what would change at home if you actually became him? Pastor Ed opens up about the failures he faced, the habits that healed his marriage, and the hope every man can lean on when love feels thin. Grounded in Ephesians 5, we explore a vision of headship that looks like Christ: sacrificial, steady, and safe.

Pastor Ed also tackles real obstacles men face: father-wounds, bitterness loops, drifting intimacy, and a culture that pulls our eyes and hearts away. He shares guardrails for fidelity in a digital world and the power of brotherhood—small groups, mentors, and honest friendships that keep us anchored when temptation or shame knocks. Throughout, the message stays practical and hopeful: your past explains, but it does not define. With God’s love filling your tank, you can lead with a tender strength your family can feel.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Mission Of The Show
• 1:55 Today’s Focus: Becoming A Godly Husband
• 4:06 Modeling Love Learned From Our Fathers
• 8:57 Hope After Mistakes And Broken Models
• 12:32 Secret One: Filled By God To Love
• 23:53 Ephesians 5: Headship And Calling
• 30:02 Loving Like Christ: Sacrifice And Safety
• 39:20 Read To Love, Not To Correct
• 47:22 Are You Withholding Love?

Transcript

Welcome & Mission Of The Show

SPEAKER_00 1:00

What kind of father do you want to be? What kind of man do you want to become for your family and for yourself? If you've ever wondered how to step into the fullness of your role as a father, husband, and man of God, then you're in the right place. Here at the Father Difference, our mission is to inspire and equip men to be the best fathers they can be. It's a powerful mission. And today, we're going to explore exactly how you can take steps toward that calling. Whether you're a father, a son, a husband, grandfather, single dad, stepfather, or just looking to grow, I believe God has something powerful for you in today's message. Whether you're tuning in live or watching this later, we are so excited to have you here. If this is what you're looking for, then subscribe so you can tune in each week to the Father Difference Live. You can sign up below. And now your host, a husband, father, grandfather, author, and former NFL player, Pastor Ed McGlass.

Modeling Love Learned From Our Fathers

Hope After Mistakes And Broken Models

Secret One: Filled By God To Love

Ephesians 5: Headship And Calling

Loving Like Christ: Sacrifice And Safety

Read To Love, Not To Correct

Are You Withholding Love?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

But today we're talking about how really to be the husband that God has called you to be. So anyway, if if we we're gonna get right into it, I'd love to see where you're from. Let me know. We get guys uh connecting in. Um we're also starting here on we're also on Instagram. So welcome if you're tuning in from Instagram today. And I'm just grateful to to share with you a little bit about my heart and and etc. Of you know how to really be the husband God's meant you to be. So when you think about your your marriage, you think about your time with your wife and and your children, how you doing, my friend? I mean, guys all the time who want to have a better marriage but don't know how to do it. They they read their Bibles, they go to church, or sometimes they just give up. And many times uh those relationships end. And oh, somebody say, What's the hat? Oh, it's make fathers great again. I'm wearing this uh in honor of all you dads out there that God wants to work on. It's a little spin on Make America Great Again, and want to just talk a little bit tonight about how God really wants to make you the best father you can be. And uh, if you're like me, this has been an incredibly emotional week. The memorial of another one of God's heroes. He's flawed like we all are, yet God used him in an extraordinary way as a as a man, as a an evangelist to kids. But one of the things that uh was so touching in watching was just the the absolute love that his wife talked about and the way Charlie loved his wife. If you're not seeing that, I I encourage you to to watch it. And uh, even if you you come from a different political kind of bent, you know, he's got a lot of incredible things from God for us, and there's a lot of videos out there. And so, how are you doing with your wife? And so, when you think about you know, trying to be that husband, right? You you know, that God calls you to be. The first step is always, you know, how how were you, how was your relationship with your dad? And what I mean by that is that how did your dad model to you loving mom? Because the beginning of our our understanding about girls, dating girls many times, etc., if it comes from your friends, you're in a whole lot of trouble. God's actually designed the family in such a way that where if you're learning how to love your girlfriend, let's say, or love your wife now, and you have had this model of a dad who's laid his life down for your mom, boy, that's a whole different beginning. And that's what we want every man that's uh a part of our fatherhood academy to learn. But here's the other thing it's and if you're still married and your marriage is suffering, here's the other truth: it's never too late for you to change all those issues in your marriage and and really become the the husband that God wants you to be. And and you're actually looking at somebody who got very little from my stepfather. My dad, as you know, was killed in action, but my stepfather didn't know how to verbally bless my mom. I don't know that he ever wrote her a note. He ended up marrying my mom after she had had me when I was a year old, after my father had died, and my mom, you know, she suffered so much in, you know, her relationship with my dad. And uh he just he kind of just checked out. And so I didn't get much of a I didn't get much of a model. How about you and your dad? Maybe your dad was a great dad, just kind of text that to me. I'd love to see it. But you know, one of the things that happens and that I know to be true, and I say this in all sincerity, is that God can teach me how to be a better loving husband and father. There's hope for you. There's hope for you. Because boy, I did a lot of things wrong. If you did a lot of things wrong, give me a high five. If you're on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Rumble, would love to hear from you. Good to see you there, Mr. Bruce, and uh so grateful you're you're joining, and you're I can't see as many people because I don't have all my monitors here. Pretty Spartan. I got actually got a I got a sock over my mic, and uh I worn one, so it's probably got a little bit better to knock the wind down to be with you tonight. And so here's a couple of principles. I share a couple of scriptures with you and just have a conversation and kind of take you on a journey of how I did a lot of things wrong, but how I really had to learn how to love my wife, be there for her, bless her, date her, write notes to her, all the things that I never saw done with my dad. And the the truth is it's never too late to do that. Well, here's the here's the first thing that that is true, and and that's this it's impossible to love a girl without God, they're wires so much differently than we are, and so we need help, and so the Bible says it this way that we're able to love because he first loved us. We're able to love our wives to the level that you and I receive it from him. One of the very first secrets of really being the kind of husband that loves your wife God's way is that you've got to fill your tank in order to be able to have love juice or the you know, the even the heart to want to love your wife when you're tired, you're coming home from work, maybe she works too, and the kids are crazy, and you guys are are growing apart, there's bitterness between you, there's things that are happening. Maybe she had a really bad father. We have a lot of coaching in our academy with girls that had really bad dads, and so they they thought that maybe if I can turn my husband into the father that I didn't ever get to have, then maybe I would feel safe. He could be my safe space. The problem is that we can't be the safe bait for our wives totally. I mean, there's things that we can do to make them feel safer and feel loved and connected, but ultimately they need to be able to connect to God Himself too, so that their love, love tank is filled. And when you're loved by God and you learn to hear his voice, read his word, apply scripture, so the Holy Spirit begins to move on you, it changes everything, it changed it for me, and it didn't happen overnight. It's it's because I was I was broken over a long time as far as girls go. And it's the other thing is that uh you know, part of my you know, tutelage and and understanding who girls are was in the National Football League. And I gotta tell you, many of those guys are not very good at being faithful to their wives. And yet there's a number of them who were incredibly faithful, walked with God, and and their spouse left, or their wife left after they hung up their cleats. When they stopped being the hero that they wanted their husband to be, maybe when the money changed after retirement, and he was doing other things, they left. I was just talking to a dear friend this past week at one of our NFL kind of get-togethers, and boy, he had a lot of heartache because he tried to be the best doggone father they could be, and sometimes the wife leaves. And boy, that's just that's uh such a devastating thing. Sometimes men leave, and the wife feels the same way, feels all alone, so it goes both ways. It's a part of part of learning. The the first thing is is to the level that you fill yourself up with God's word, God's love, and here there's a little secret prayer. I gotta, I gotta tell you my secret prayer. When I grab my Bible, and I'm gonna encourage you to do this too. I have a leather Bible. Well, I know that we have digital ones, and we put notes on the screen, etc. But I saw a video that Charlie Kirk did about this. I should have probably put it in the in the background of this, but this is I remember having Bibles. This is uh this one I've been reading for about 20 years. I got pages that are falling out, I got notes all over it, and uh, I used to read my Bible, and and you can tell I I got it underlined, and I put dates on there with things that got spoken into my life, and these Bibles that I have, I haven't done this in a number of years. I give these to my children as a it's a testament to me reading it, and so I'm getting ready to get another one, and I'm gonna give this to one of my uh children, one of my sons, and I think it's gonna be really powerful for them because my first uh four kids got a Bible, and they have a copy of one of my Bibles, one that I had in training camp. And the reason I say tell that is that this Bible is is filled with the story of God towards Ed McGlassen and writing notes, doing a journal, journals are really powerful. It has a way of really helping you and cement you into promises. Maybe you've never read a Bible before, maybe you don't know how to hear it right, but you could you can actually sign up for our daily devotional that we have and get that every morning to your inbox, a scripture or two in a short little thing, and right right from our website. It's one of our banners. Let me see if I can uh find that for you. If you just go to our website and you'll see it right there, there's one that says free devotion. You can click in there and it'll and give me your email address, and we're not gonna spam you, I promise, but we want to just sew this into you every single day. All that to say, my friends, um, nothing's impossible when you really begin to understand that you can't do this life of loving your wife without God, and there's not enough love in the world in you to be able to do that, and so the truth of the matter is the Bible is this really true. We love because he first loved us. We we move on. So, number one, you gotta read the Bible, read the word, pray for power, and and then here's the little secret question Father, show me how to love my wife. Let Christ love the church. We're gonna get to that verse. Show me how to love my wife. So, right as you know, Paul is writing to the church's emphasis, and he starts out this section about wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord. Your husband's ahead of the wife, you and Christ is the head of the church. His body is himself that savior. And now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit their husband and in everything to their husbands. And so part of part of the application of this or the fear of this, even for gals, is that am I supposed to submit to my husband who's abusing me or who's mean to me, etc. Well, that's a whole other subject. We're gonna deal with the gals in one of our future podcasts. But I want you to notice why a wife should submit to a husband, right? Because we've been made the head of our wife positionally, not in power or prestige, but we've been placed into a place where God has made us the head of the wife, is Christ as the head of the church. It's a it's a place of great authority that we have. And when you remove fathers from the earth, you you have complete destruction of community and and families, and yet this is not just a scripture for wives, although there's applications here, it's a scripture about the position that we're supposed to take. It's just like a serious command from God, and he says, Now, as the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit in everything to their husbands, and so when we live out and we really become the kind of man that our wife wants to follow, it's a powerful day, my friend. And it's not as hard as you think, right? It's not about being perfect, but usually the work that goes into in our coaching community at the Fatherhood Academy is that we we we go through a whole process of teaching the wives and the husbands to really declare and work through the bitterness that they have because of the unforgiveness is part of the family. And we've talked about this numbers of times. I don't want to go all the way into that tonight, but you know, you're you're the one who gets to set the standard about what happens when there's hurt. Are you gonna ask for forgiveness? Or are you gonna just say, Well, I didn't really mean it, just kidding. Which, by the way, your children will do that to you one day. How do you know that? Well, my friend, let me tell you how I know that. That's exactly what's happened in my family. And God, I had to fix some really broken patterns in my life with my children, and I'm so grateful that God did that. Okay, let's go into the next part of this verse here. It's really meaty force. So, husbands, love your wife as Christ has loved the church. Well, how did how did uh Jesus love his church? And he gave himself up for her. Well, he carried the cross, he was willing to not make, you know, he had this willingness of not making it about him, he made it all about the one that he loved. He carried the cross for us. He didn't carry the cross for his sin, he carried the cross for our sin. He carried the cross for our brokenness. And so when you do that as a husband for your wife, and you're willing, there's something that happens when she sees that you are poured out and loving her, it's that it sanctifies her, and it sanctifies her because she be she begins to feel safe, and not only that, she'll begin to listen to the things that God is teaching you. Look what it says here. Having cleansed her with the washing of water with the word of God, it's it's see, part of it is when you're living through the scripture yourself, and you're loving your wife through the truth that you learned about loving her. I mean, it it's an amazing thing. She begins, she's hungry. And I, you know, I coach a lot of couples through the years. I've been a senior pastor for like 35 years, and now, and then doing men's events, you know, weekly sometimes, and or bi-monthly, all through time being a senior pastor, traveling all over, been 14 different countries, Africa, I mean, so so many, South Africa, New Zealand, all those places, and all those couples have the same exact issues. That's why God's word is so powerful. In those places where you find husbands who are concerning are now listen to me, this is a nuance here. You're consuming God's word every day so that you can learn to love. You're not reading your Bible so you can confront your wife. Somebody give me a high five on that because that's just how many times do we read the Bible for other people? And you know, when when you stay in that place of understanding that it's really true, you know, I am the worst sinner that has no glass and nose. How about you? You know, we get in those broken places in our life, and and so and then when we get victory, then it's really easy. For us, you know, to read, you know, be religious and to make our life about trying to correct everybody instead of living the message. The whole secret of reaching this next generation is being a guy who actually lives in the word, who loves God, and who lays down his life. And if you know, if we were to interview all these kids that heard Charlie Kirk, and there were some who you know got confronted by his ability to in scripture and etc. And you see it all all through the social media posts, I mean, the millions of them, is that they loved him because he he came down to their level and he really cared about what they thought. And he did and he answered questions. Sometimes they didn't like it. I mean, Muslims coming to Jesus, I mean, uh, I mean, meetings, a million kids on the street in in London, just amazing. Well, it's a picture of us, and man, I I miss not having him around on the team. But you know what? He lived the life to not just about his story with his wife, but to teach us. And when we live in a place where we become the message that we want our family to represent, and we're sowing that, you know, your wife's gonna gobble that up. Gobble that up. In all the coaching that I get to do, the wife's always going, let's pray together, let's go to Bible study together, let's go to counseling together. And the guy's going, oh, hey, I'm that I'm a guy too. And part of the issue that we have is that we in in the in the core centers of our own pride in our life, we feel like we we have to make it happen by ourselves. But the truth is we've been made in such a way where we're flawed, and we're flawed in this way, is that we can't do this without Christ. We can't love our wife that Christ had the church, right? So, you know, because the the point of all this of washing of water with the word of God over your home, over your life that you've received, is that you might present, I mean, Jesus' job that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy without blemish. You probably never thought that your part of your role is to live in the word in such a way that you become contagious to your children, and their lives are never the same. So good, and that's so confronting. I'm gonna turn my camera just a little bit, only because the sun is is setting and it's washing out the side of my face. Which doesn't matter. I wish I could tell you that I'm at the mountain of God and the glory of the Lord is shining upon me. Let's go on here. And so I wanted to ask you a question. And this is one of the ways about learning about loving your wife, is that are are you loving your wife? Think about that. Do you immediately pulling away from affection of loving your wife unless she does it right? Or if she doesn't bother you a certain way, or if she doesn't, you know, etc. etc. etc. Do you just do you love her the way Jesus loves you? Because he doesn't love us with hooks, he wants us to be like him, but he loves us in such a way that his love towards us begins to equip us in ways in our family that we we don't do. In a lot of the coaching that I'm doing, is one of the questions I asked is what are the things that is keeping you from loving your spouse with all they have? And it that's a powerful question. Think about that for a minute. What is keeping you from loving your wife with all you have? Is it you? And you're not just nurturing your heart before the Lord, or are you waiting for her to stop complaining, or etc, etc, etc, etc.? Or you're you're tired of being around her because you know she makes you mad, or is it because you've not forgiven her? And so we get into these patterns in her life, and boy, I learned all that. I mean, I I did that to Joe and and to my daughters, and and I really hurt them. I crushed them. I didn't mean to, you know, again. Well, actually, probably I did mean to because I wanted her to love me a certain way. How about you? How about you with your kids? How about you with your wife? And you know, part of learning to love is loving our spouse or wife, the way Christ did. And here's in the next scripture in the same way, because we have Jesus' example in the same way, husbands should love their wives as his own bodies. Wow, what a left hook. Think about all the time you you know you've invested in getting in shape or something you do, or fishing, or a hobby, you know, stuff you you invest in yourself. And so, do you love your wife like you invest in all that stuff? I remember just you know, leaving the National Football League, everything was about bike riding, so I could stay fit. And boy, I was just so into that. And and I could tell that you know, we our marriage was drifting, not that my wife was moving away from me, because I wasn't focused on her, wasn't dating her as much. And let me see if I can move this around just a little bit more because maybe I'll put a halo behind me, and I'll look more anointed, and so I got really confronted by the Lord because he who loves his wife loves himself. Think about that. Incredibly no, and now we got the sun kind of coming into here, so that's not working. I'm just trying to get you guys outside with me, but I gotta move this back a little bit, so hang on with me. That's better. Is that better? Okay. Always learning, always learning. So let's get back to what that scripture we're talking about. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one has uh hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as in Christ does the church, because we're members of his body, and so the way we love our wife is representative, it's a picture to other people about how Christ loves the church. I mean, our role as men is is so important in community and places, and how many times have you remember going out and seeing people you know on dates? And it seemed like the only passion between them was the food, the grunts and the groans. And so I'm gonna give you a couple things that I learned to do. Okay, here we are with some application of learning how to love your wife as you do your own body, your stuff, like Christ loved the church. Well, number one, and actually, I put them in here, I think in another slide. Let me let me find that slide here. Um here we go. Okay, so here we go. Let's all right. So here's four things I want you to just think about. We're gonna talk about each one of them. Number one, you got and we already talked about that, you got to spend time in God's Word every day asking Him to teach you how to love your wife today. Maybe it's your son, maybe it's a daughter, maybe it's somebody that you're struggling with. Spend time every day and ask God Himself, how how can I love my wife better? What do you want me to do? I tell you, when you begin talking to God that way, guess what he does? He's always meeting you, teaching you uh how to do things that you weren't equipped to do. Hold on here. My little makeshift uh studio here in the mountains. Oh, by the way, let me let you know why I'm up in the mountains. Pastor friend of mine that has a pastor uh church up here, his father was on his way at his 80th birthday party to come and see his son and his grandson and daughters, and on the way to Bishop, California from Northern California, uh, somebody crossed over lanes and hit him head on, and he died instantly. And uh my buddy called me and I imagine the shock of losing your dad that way, a dad that he loved, and he called me and said, Hey, hey, can you can you come up and give me some time? And I said, Man, we're gonna start packing the car. So I'm up here to help him with the church and and do some preaching and teaching and just you know be a friend at the same time. I'm gonna get to do some painting, which I love to do. Go out and paint a mountain, so you might see those by the end of the year, and so all that to say, spend time in God's words every day. So somebody's wondering, well, why are you up there? Here's number two write notes and tell her what you love about her. You know, you know, Erica Kirk, one of her testimonies was that Charlie would once once a week at the same time, would send her a love note. That that idea got dropped in my heart during one of my times with the Lord. And so I started to write notes to my daughters, which helped me you know kind of re-establish connection with their hearts, and I started writing notes to my wife, and to and I didn't do it once a week, you know. I you know, I probably did it uh you know, maybe once a month, and I would just write a note, and it was all about what I loved about her, and I want to tell you, it did two things. Number one, it re-engaged my heart to my wife. Number two, it opened her heart to being loved by me more. So, how do you nurture your wife with notes? We give cards on birthdays, and and those are all great, but a note from you could mean all the difference. And here's here's and so part of it is what are the things that you love about her? Don't write her a note to say, I'd like you to start doing this. But to my absolute surprise, my wife would take those notes and put them on her mirror, that place where she puts all her beauty on, and look at that every day. See, we never truly understand how powerful our words are. You know, it says in James, if we can control our tongues, we can keep our bodies from sinning. Something is really, really powerful about blessing people with our words. You might have one of your kids that is like, you know, I don't want to talk to you, etc. Well, write them a note, and don't make it all about what you love about them, and maybe what you see in them that's that you admire. That's a really powerful way to reach your kids, and it it's amazing what kindness can do. It's it's an act of kindness and love to take those words in your heart and just put them down on paper. By the way, don't don't think you've got to be a Hemingway because they'll know you went to AI and wrote it. But just, you know, with your own hand, your handwriting, just say, This is what I love about you. I'm just thinking about you today. And I I've seen whole families come back together because dad starts writing letters to lost kids. It's powerful stuff. How do I know that's true? God wrote his love letter to us at the Bible, and we're reading those letters. We got 66 books, all these letters from God to us. We're reading those, it's changing our lives. And then amazing kind of picture there. Okay, here's that's number two. Number three, ask her to teach you how to love her better. Oh, sorry. I just this is the hardest one for us to do. And I usually do a caveat sometimes. I'll say, could you just give me like one or two things that I could work on that would really show you how much I love you? And because, you know, inside of your wife is a built-in marriage manual. If you learn how to turn the pages, you're gonna you're gonna be celebrated like you've never been celebrated. And when your wife moves from loving you because she has to to liking you because she gets to, there's nothing like that. You know, one of the things I love about Jill and I, so one of the things that we do, and it's one of the points that's coming up, but you know, those those notes and me pursuing her and dating my wife, it's it opens her heart to me. And and we love dating my wife. It's one of the funnest things I do is I get to be with her because I get to be with somebody who, at the core of who she is, she just absolutely likes me. And that just blows my mind. How about you? And so all that to say is that when you're pursuing her and loving her, and you're you're you're owning your stuff, and you know, writing her notes and asking her to teach you how to love better, and then you know, number four, date your wife at least every month and spend, and here's the here's the deal is my wife and I made a deal about dating, and I said, look, because when we first started dating, it was a time where we end up talking about a lot of things that were broken in our relationship. I was sitting in this restaurant, and I'm looking around the whole room, and nobody is loving each other, they're all either just grunting about the food, or they're sitting there and they don't say a word. So they brought their bitterness to dinner with them. And so I remember looking at Jill and saying, you know, let's make a rule that when we date, we spend the entire time talking about what we love about each other. See, I don't want to spend my dinner if you're gonna crab at me because I can get that for free at home. So when we go on a date, let's just pursue. And with little did I know that little simple thing in my own heart towards my wife, loving my wife like Christ loved the church, there was this constant pursuit uh of loving her, it opened her heart in so many amazing ways, and it opened my heart. Because what you focus on for more than 15 minutes, we have this propensity as men to fall in love. I mean, if you ever have you ever noticed how guys, you know, if they if you ever go to Home Depot, if you're watching this from America, we have Home Depot, but guys are walking around and you know they know they shouldn't buy their fifth screw gun. But if they look at it too long, they're putting it in your car. They don't really need it. I mean, I got how many of you got more tools than you need, but if you focus on anything, you can fall in love with it. Well, part of that is that you gotta guard your heart by what you see, what you look at. And this isn't as much a part of this because this is nurturing that, but that's why you, if I were to say a step five, is you need to, you know, not only date your wife and and just tell her what you love about her and travel and take her on adventures and and hikes and do things with her so that she was that you just want to be she's gonna open her heart more than ever, and that's a powerful, that's a powerful thing. And so, you know, so man to man, just point number five, it's not in the bullet points, but is that protect protect the fidelity of your marriage with other women because you're always your your flesh is gonna be stimulated by whatever you focus on, and so you you you've got to be willing to protect that, and you know the enemy is gonna do everything he can to get you to compare the girl you're looking at with the girl you're living with, and he doesn't ever stop that because I'll tell you why he hates that you love your wife, he hates that you're married, and he wants you and your wife to blow up so that somehow the bitterness and hurt of all that can go right into children, and that would break their cycle where they don't want to get married. I mean, uh there's a large swath of young men today who are afraid to get married, they're holding back, they just want to hook up and break up. And when I interview them and talk to them, I get a lot of response on that when I talk about this. Uh, Elon Musk's social media network is, Why aren't you getting married? It said, Well, just we're afraid of being hurt. And then I my response back is, Well, why are you afraid of being hurt? He goes, Well, my mom and dad didn't make it, so I don't want to make the same mistake. I want to be safe. I said, Well, is it safe? No, I'm lonely. And one of the byproducts that's with social media and being able to see all this, or when pornography starts coming towards you as a man and your heart gets gets sideways and shame now falls on your life. What happens? All that sin, one of the things the effects of sins, you know, the wages of sin is death, is the devil wants to destroy you so he can destroy this ember of love that was sparked when you said I do. And I gotta tell you, you you gotta fight for that. And the way you do that is you gotta be quick to repent. And not only that, like one of my great buddies, Jeff Kent, got an amazing ministry to men in small groups, is that we need a small group of guys. We need guys that we can hang out with, talk with, which I love being with you. That's why we built a fatherhood academy, and we got small groups where men are coming together, and we'd love to see you in an academy in a group learning, growing so we can learn. From you. We can be brothers together. And one of the great things about being in a small group with men, where you're reading the word of God, you're learning how to love one another, you're learning how to kids, and you're learning how to bless and love your wife. And you're fishing and you're hunting and you're having fun too, like I do. Girls do the same thing. They shop and they do all kinds of amazing adventures, and and and which I've never been to a woman's retreat, but that's what I hear. It's all about relationship. And so you protect the fidelity of your marriage with all that you have. All you have. And you let your wife in on maybe girls that are coming after you. And and my wife's a bear, she protects me, and she realizes when girls are sort of coming towards me because they like something I said or did. And as a pastor, it happened too many times from from you know places, not too many, but many times, and just broken, broken girls who are looking for love. And thinking that, oh, the pastor might be the safe man. Well, I'm a broken guy. Just like your husband that you are mad at. But maybe the only difference is I'm admitting how broken I am. And when you admit it and live in that place with you and me is mad, that's a great first step of being able to be there for your family and your wife. And so we talked about spend time in God's Word. Because if you don't get it from Jesus in the Word every day, you got no juice. Write notes and tell her how much you love her. I want to hear from you guys that you're writing notes. And she might tear them up at first. Don't stop. And by the way, throw a little after shave on there. I do that, it works because I can be pretty stinky as a football player. Ask her to teach you how to love her better. That's an incredible thing. Don't you gotta have all the things and don't be over-spiritual thinking that you just got to hear from God in order to love your wife. No, just he'll show you she needs armed love dates and then date your wife every month or every week and spend that whole date night talking about what you love about her. And you know, in number five, they added in just protect the fidelity of your heart in your marriage, because the ad will do everything he can to knock you out of your family so he can get your kids and hurt them. Well, anyway, it's so great to be with you here in Crawley Lake, California, and uh up here serving it's a church on the mountain and being up here and hiking with my wife and having great dinners and doing some oil painting and you know, just loving Jesus, listening for his voice, loving each other. And so we we had a great day today. How about you and your wife? It's never too late. So I'd like to pray for you before you go, and a couple of uh things to if you don't get my daily devotional every day, sign up right now. All you gotta do is go to the fatherdifference.com slash free devotion. It'll ask for your email address, and we will send it to you uh every day in your inbox. Uh would love to do that as well. Maybe you're in a place where you're needing some coaching, and uh the way you get coaching either is directly with me, or you know, you send me an email saying I'd like to. I need some prayer and I need some coaching, and I would love to help you out. It's one of the joys of my life of being able to uh show you that I am just like you. I've made just as many mistakes or maybe more than you have. I think God's put me on display that way, and I still have a wife that likes me. I love that. So let me pray for you. And one of the books that I highly suggest that you get is right now we're it's part of our academy, but you can get it yourself, and it's the oh where go to my website at the Father Difference. You'll go to the bookstore, and you can get it on all Amazon, etc. It's how to become the husband and father your family needs. It's a tremendous, it's a tool that took me 30 years to write. Uh, not that I started 30 years ago, but it took 30 years for God to show me things about loving, how to be a good husband, how to be a father, now as a grandpa. You might be a grandpa. There's a lot of great things there. So if you go to my website, you can see the see you know all those things that we have, and it's our gift to you. So let's pray. Father, thank you for my friends. I'm so thankful for technology that I can talk to them in different places around the country and around the world. I ask you to bless them and be with them. I ask you, Lord, to heal any of those places that are broken in their marriage. I pray you'd be with them. I pray you'd bless even the gals that are listening right now. I ask you to bless them, and Donna and Karen, and just a few that I can see because I don't have a lot of monitors, and and Titus and Alan, Bruce, and Lord, I pray that you just be with them and and uh and I pray you would give them the marriage that you dream about. He stretched his arms out and died. So I pray for my brothers, I pray for my sisters watching. I pray you'd be with them in the name of Jesus. Bring the healing they need in their marriages. And all God's people said, Amen. Thank you. We're gonna have a short little video. Maybe you've seen it before. That's gonna run when we end our stream. And part of it, it describes our Fatherhood Academy, and the other part of it is we're able to do this because partners like you say, Ed, I'm gonna support Ed and what he does. And his conferences and and reaching people even outside of our country, but really making a difference for young people. I love coaching young people, and I've had three young people in the last two weeks who've read my book or seen a post and called me and said, Would you would you help me? Had actually two more today that I met at lunch. You know, there's kids everywhere, and they're desperate for fathers and mothers like you. And if you're a mom watching, dad watching. And I mean, our God wants to do something profound, and that's the mission of my life. Whatever it takes to help you become the father and mother that God has always wanted you to be. And so thanks for tuning in. And if you're in a place to support us, would you consider giving us a gift, a monthly gift, be a partner? Join the academy would also give us a gift every single month to help us spread this out and to reach more people.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Dear friends, imagine a world where every father feels equipped to lead with faith, love, and purpose. A world where families thrive and communities grow stronger because of devoted, Christ-centered fathers.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

You know, beloved, that is the vision that God's put in my heart for every single family. You know, he is on the move, I believe. He promises in Malachi that before the great and coming day of the Lord, he's gonna do something profound. He's gonna turn the hearts of fathers back towards their children. So the hearts of their children will turn back to their father. That's what God is doing. I meet dads daily who want to learn to be better fathers. Yet many have never been shown how. Too many families are being fractured through bitterness, and with parents and grandparents even being canceled. That's why we're launching an online community to quit and to be the fathers that God has called them to be. It's more than a program, it's a part of a movement that God is already doing to reshape fatherhood. It's a sacred calling rooted in the teachings of pride. And we're calling this the Fatherhood Academy, where men will embark on a journey of healing and spiritual restoration that helps them transform their family relationship. And to make this vision a reality, would you consider partnering with us financially as we continue to reach and disciple every man, dad, and grandpa that comes our way? Your donation will help create a ripple across the neighborhoods, communities, you know, an ultimately our nature, anchoring each child who's division and the unwavering love and guidance of a devoted dad.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Will you partner with us? Your gift, whether a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, will help to transform lives. Together, we can equip fathers and grandfathers to lead with faith and create a brighter, hope filled future for generations to come. Click the link to donate today. Thank you for believing in this mission and joining us on this transformative journey.