In this episode, we explore the topic of new year resolutions and how being people of our word is so much more important. Jesus tells us that we must be people who mean what we say. Our YES must be our yes and our NO must be our NO.

We also give simple tips and ideas on how to be better at keeping our word this year and how not being people of our word can hurt not only ourselves and our relationship with our spouse but also with our kids and others.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Aaron:              Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.

Jennifer:           Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Aaron:              And today we're going to talk about how to be people of our word. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.

Jennifer:           I'm Jennifer also known as unveiled wife.

Aaron:              And I'm Aaron also known as husband revolution.

Jennifer:           We have been married for over a decade.

Aaron:              And so far we have four young children.

Jennifer:           We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.

Aaron:              With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.

Jennifer:           We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life.

Aaron:              Love.

Jennifer:           And power.

Aaron:              That can only be found by chasing after God.

Jennifer:           Together.

Aaron:              Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.

Jennifer:           This is Marriage After God. Well, happy 2020, everyone.

Aaron:              I was wondering if you're going to say 2020 or 2,020.

Jennifer:           I'm a 2,020 er. I guess.

Aaron:              Yeah, I'm a 2020 er. I think.

Jennifer:           I don't think I've said it before.

Aaron:              Or 2,020? 2020. It's the first time we're saying it.

Jennifer:           It's the 20s.

Aaron:              It's the 20... We're in the 20s. I did see a meme that said... It said, "Everyone be aware the 20s is starting in a couple days." And it showed this picture of all these really dapper men wearing the 20s suits, and it looked really cool. I was like, "I wish. I wish it was that 20s." Now, we're in 2020.

Jennifer:           If they were here. This is crazy if you think about it.

Aaron:              We're in a new decade. I don't know if everyone's thought about that. But we're literally in a new decade. That's insane. So this is the first episode of the year for us. If you're noticing it's launching on a Monday, that's a new thing for us.

Jennifer:           Yeah.

Aaron:              We usually launch on Wednesdays, but now we're going to try launching on Mondays and see if we like that timeframe of launching episodes.

Jennifer:           Hopefully, you guys like it too. If you want to give us some feedback, just head on over to Instagram at marriageaftergod and let us know what you think.

Aaron:              Yeah. We had a... Man, I feel like we had an awesome 2019.

Jennifer:           Yeah.

Aaron:              2019.

Jennifer:           I liked it.

Aaron:              2019? 2,019.

Jennifer:           2,019.

Aaron:              And I just wanted to do a quick recap of just what 2,019 looked like for us as a family. And we're going to talk about things that we're excited about for 2020.

Jennifer:           Yep.

Aaron:              And then we're going to talk about the topic. So, the first thing I can think of from 2019.

Jennifer:           Even though it happened mid-year.

Aaron:              It's like mid-year.

Jennifer:           It was a lot of work in preparation leading up to it.

Aaron:              Our book, Marriage After God.

Jennifer:           Yep.

Aaron:              Launched June 2019.

Jennifer:           June 4th.

Aaron:              June 4th, yeah. And man, thousands and thousands of you guys have gotten a copy of this book. And we've had such good feedback from it. And we just love seeing what the Lord's doing in and through this book. Not in the book, I guess. Through the book in marriages. And so if you haven't gotten a copy of the Marriage After God book, you can head over to Amazon, you can head over to our store, shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up a copy today. You get a bunch of free resources with it when you do. But that was a huge thing.

Jennifer:           Yeah.

Aaron:              That's like a lot of time, a lot of work writing, the publishing process.

Jennifer:           Like two years worth [crosstalk 00:03:02 ]

Aaron:              The waiting, then the marketing and then all of that stuff. I feel like we just wanted to take a ton of break off, like after that. A ton of time off because it was exhausting. And what else happened in 2019?

Jennifer:           Well, shortly after the launch of Marriage After God, we found out we were expecting again.

Aaron:              Yeah, we're pregnant with number five.

Jennifer:           Number five. So most of my summer was sitting on the back porch just not feeling well. But the kids played and it was great. And it was beautiful. And I think a lot of that hopefulness of this pregnancy and meeting our daughter, [crosstalk 00:03:35 ] Edith.

Aaron:              Edith.

Jennifer:           Yeah, I'm just sat with us the rest of the year.

Aaron:              Yeah, and this has been a difficult pregnancy, but it's been teaching us a lot, which is really cool. Number five [crosstalk 00:03:46 ]

Jennifer:           Not difficulty because I've had, like health issues or anything like that, but just feeling nauseous and already having little kids that we're helping nurture.

Aaron:              Yeah, there's been no complications just it's been a rough physically.

Jennifer:           It's been harder than the other ones, for sure.

Aaron:              Yeah.

Jennifer:           I just wanted to clarify.

Aaron:              But you're on the other side of that. Yes, you have a little bit of hard time sleeping sometimes. But this has been... We're excited to meet Edith.

Jennifer:           Yeah.

Aaron:              In March.

Jennifer:           I felt like getting through the holidays and focusing on Christmas was like my goal, because I knew once the new year came, my next thing [crosstalk 00:04:21 ]

Aaron:              You're like, "This is coming."

Jennifer:           Welcoming this baby. And so I'm just so excited to be kicking off this new year with that in my heart and getting ready to meet her.

Aaron:              Another big thing that happened in 2019 for us was we branched off from our home church and planted a home church with a few couples.

Jennifer:           So we've been doing home church since Olive was about three months old.

Aaron:              Oh, wow.

Jennifer:           Yeah. So it's been a few years and it grew. And the point of branching off and planting a new home church was for growth.

Aaron:              Yeah. Instead of just the mentality that we have with our home churches, instead of growing and staying together and buying a building and expanding that way, we just plant churches in homes. So there's been two other churches planted from that one home church over the last couple years. And so we've been doing it for eight months now. And it's incredible. The families that have come, the people that God's brought in, and the relationships that we're building.

Aaron:              It's teaching us new levels of love for one another. It's teaching us how to grow in our giftings. I've been teaching a lot more in our home church. It's just so cool. And so that's been a huge thing. It really exciting. Probably one of my... Other than having another baby coming, it's probably one of my favorite things that happened last year was planting that home church.

Jennifer:           Another thing that stands out to me is, I've been homeschooling the kids. I feel like since they were born just because of the nature of who I am and what I love [crosstalk 00:05:47 ]

Aaron:              The way we worked out.

Jennifer:           The way we work.

Aaron:              We don't talk to them like babies.

Jennifer:           well, and not just that, but I was in the Christian preschool education system for so long. And so I had this background to know just how to incorporate teaching and learning with young kids throughout the preschool years. And so I've always just naturally done it with my kids. But this was the first year that we officially started Grade One. And it was a big deal to me because [crosstalk 00:06:13 ]

Aaron:              It's like a real grade.

Jennifer:           Well, it's a grade, right? I was nervous. I've never done it before. A