Marriage in Real Life
Marriage in Real Life
The Blueprint for Lifelong Devotion: Celebrating Over 40 Years of Marital Wisdom with Bishop Gerald and Lady Cheryl Banks
Unlock the secrets to a fulfilling, lifelong marriage as we sit down with Bishop Gerald and Lady Cheryl Banks, a couple whose love has blossomed over an astonishing 41 years. Their wisdom, deeply rooted in spiritual faith and practical experience, offers a blueprint for not just surviving, but thriving in a committed relationship. From the sacred origins of marriage to the daily acts that cement a loving bond, this episode is a treasure chest of insights that promises to enrich your understanding of love, partnership, and divine intention.
Feel the warmth as Bishop Gerald and Lady Cheryl Banks unwrap the pillars that have supported their four decades of unity—trust, forgiveness, and communication stand out as the load-bearing walls of their marital home. As you listen, you'll learn how they've navigated the challenges of change and growth, keeping the flame of friendship alive through humility and compromise. Their anecdotes and advice serve as a guiding light for any couple looking to reinforce their connection and ward off the shadows of conflict and negativity that can encroach upon even the happiest of unions.
Wrap up your listening journey with heartfelt stories that exemplify the importance of shared faith and mutual respect. The Banks couple's reflections on overcoming obstacles, both big and small, provide a candid look at the effort required to build a strong, supportive relationship. Whether you're engaged, newlyweds, or celebrating decades together, this episode is a testament to the enduring power of love and the small, continual acts that weave a tapestry of deep affection and understanding in marriage.
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Well, welcome to marriage in real life, welcome, welcome. We want to thank each and everybody who has, who is joining us for this time we're going to have a special guest with us tonight. Yeah, all right, we're so excited to have them join us tonight. You know, as I often say, you could have been doing something else, but joining us is one thing. That is is great, and I'm so excited about having this young couple.
Speaker 3:Absolutely All right.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to have this young couple with us tonight. You know they are our spiritual mother and father in the gospel. They got on us.
Speaker 3:Yes, they did.
Speaker 1:Right, thank you.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know they got. They got on us and so we're so glad to have them with us tonight. We got Bishop Gerald and Lady Cheryl Banks. We want to give everybody come on, y'all, give them a hand clap for being here. All right, we're so excited about having them with us tonight. You know they've been married for 41 years. 41 years, that's a long time. That is a long time We've been married, almost 32. So they got us. You know about a lot, right, yeah, about 10 years.
Speaker 1:All right, all right so, but we're glad to have them with us and they're going to share with us. They're going to have just a marriage talk and they're going to have we're going to have some prayer at the end and hopefully enough time. We have some, some questions. You know, if somebody want to call in and ask some questions or you can put the questions in the chat, we'll be monitoring that, but we're so glad to have them, so we want to bring over Bishop and Gerald and Lady Cheryl Banks. How y'all doing All right, how y'all doing, we're doing all right, we are happy. You know, we're happy, you happy babe.
Speaker 3:Most of the time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So I'm like most of the time. Okay, All right. Well, all right. So I'm glad I'm making you happy most of the time. All right, Good to go. Well, we will like again. We're excited to have Bishop and Lady Cheryl share with some couples tonight, and so we're just going to turn it over to y'all, Bishop and it's all you all. God bless you.
Speaker 4:First of all, we want to thank God, amen, for being on here with my son and my daughter in the Lord and offer them what they're doing to help marriage and be better. And we praise God, amen, for coming on and allowing us to be able to share from our experiences. And I want to thank God for my wife, cheryl Lady Banks. We got married December 25th 1982. And I am grateful, amen, that God has blessed me with the woman of God, a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother, and to 41 years she's still right there by me every day. I start to stand by her every day.
Speaker 2:So you want to say something.
Speaker 4:You want to get started. No, say something to the people.
Speaker 2:Say hi. Hi guys, we're so glad to be here, we're glad to have. We thank Pastor Eric and First Lady Pat. People are inviting us on. We love them so much and I love their relationship. They have a wonderful relationship and I love how they laugh and enjoy each other, and that's what marriage is all about.
Speaker 4:Amen, and as we, we got a few points we're going to, you know, try to bring out. And I just want to reiterate something about marriage. You know, blue prayer that we got is the Bible and we applied to our lives and then we tried to make sure that we were following God's guidelines for marriage as best we could. I always want to be some hiccups and some challenges, but you got to remember this If you love God, it's going to work out, amen. So my wife is going to start out and I'll just chime in when she's letting me.
Speaker 2:So my husband came up with five or six different points that we're going to talk about the first one is when did marriage? Begin why? Why do we have marriage? And it started with in the very beginning, when God created the heavens up. He created Adam and then he found out that Adam was alone and he needed companionship. So Mary started out as companionship. So he put Adam to sleep, took a real bow, made Eve and that was the very first marriage.
Speaker 4:And when you look at that particular scenario, you understand that God, god did this, god brought them together and inside of bringing them together, amen. God was establishing something in this birth day he had created and he made man to me and he gave man a helper, he gave man a help me, which is his wife, and that's such an awesome thing, amen. The Bible says when a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing, obtained favor from the Lord. And, like I said, we've been married 40, 41 years and I'm going to get into that a little bit as my wife go to look once.
Speaker 2:Okay. Next point is when you marry, you should marry for love, and I know so many people marry for different reasons, security, different things, but this should feel that we should marry for love. If John first, john four and eight, says whoever does not love does not know God. So if you don't love your spouse, then because you know he's included in that, is easy for us to try to love others, but the person that we live in the house with we should love them. And if we don't love our spouse then we don't love God. So and then when you're in love, you have a joy, that that kind of joy that you can't get from anything else, not from buying houses or cars or having money or career. When you in love with the person, you have that joy, that fellowship with them, that love that my brother love belt and banks. He used to say that my husband got from work. I'll be standing at the door and he said I used to jump up and down.
Speaker 2:I don't know how true that was, but I was glad to see him and I really was glad to see him, and I do when still now, when he's gone and he comes in, it's just like a happiness. Come over me, and that's that. That's so sweet, that's the kind of love that we should have one for each other.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right, yeah, I think God for that. Now I want to say this about sometime when people look at years, let me explain something. You know they look at the longevity of marriage. You got a lot of people that are in married a long time but they are not. They are not together. What I mean by that is if you have a house, a home, and if you don't invest in that home over time everything starts breaking down. When things start breaking out in that house, you know if you don't repair it, you pretty soon you're going to have a mess on your end. So you've got to invest in your marriage. It starts with God. I married a lot of people over my years of ministry and I always tell them this do not leave God at the altar. Now, most people want to Godly. When they want God to sanction it, they want it in a church and that's all that's well and good. But when you bring God into your marriage, you bring God into your marriage. God have guidelines for the man as well as the woman.
Speaker 4:So that way, if we start going country, we go back to daddy God and find what the guidelines are and say, okay, let's bring ourselves in and let's do it the way God wants to do it, and a lot of times they may. What causes marriage to have issues and problems. If the people want to submit to those guidelines because of pride, because I want to be right, you know what I mean, I know. You know whatever, everybody got their own reasons, but you got to keep God is the group that hold marriage together. When two people are like this and when they start spreading they, may God hold them together. He will hold that marriage together until y'all can get it figured out. Amen, all right, amen.
Speaker 2:Last little point about love that we want to say that love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own. So that's, if you want to measure men, or how to measure, rather, you're really truly in love with that person, is that person more important to you than you getting your own, your, your happiness? Our third point says that you must have trust in the marriage. Trust starts with forgiveness. Okay, trust doesn't mean that that person will never do anything wrong or you will never do anything wrong, but trust means that I trust God enough that we can get over anything that might happen in our marriage.
Speaker 4:Amen. And that's very, very important because I also want to say this I meant to mention it earlier when you go into a marriage, one thing you got to rule, like that option is, if it don't work on getting a divorce, that option cannot be on the table. If you go into marriage, you must get that option out. There shouldn't be an option. That shouldn't be something you got in your back pocket Because you're going there used to make those vows you say to death, do us part, and in the midst of that you always go, have some challenges. Remember, god is the glue. But you got to take that divorce option off the table.
Speaker 4:Me, my wife, you know we're saying no one mentioned it out of house. We don't want to hang around. We don't want that spirit eat around our house. We talked about that. We can get upset with each other, but we want to take that off the table and say we can trick us from time to time, but you got to stay close to God so God can get you back on track. And when you, when you start talking about Our marriage and you want, you want to love and you want to trust that person, they're gonna be some time, when it's tested. They're gonna be some time when it's tested, for you have to understand, even you have to understand this. God got you and God got that person. You do right by God, no matter what they are doing. You've got to do right by God at the end of the day, and God handle your desires and your prayers Concerning your spouse. Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Please remember to forgive quickly, just forgive. If you hold on to things and things get into your heart, it's gonna even though you don't say it out loud, it's gonna eventually Interrupt the marriage and cause confusion. And so forgive, just forget. You want to be forgiven. You know if you make a mistake, you want them to forgive. You know you want your spouse to forgive you right away. So forgive quickly, all right, and, and I'll repeat one more time, trust is in the Lord.
Speaker 2:Okay the Lord is perfect. Jesus was perfect. He walked the face of this earth and he went through everything that we're going through. Jesus was the only perfect one. So eventually your spouse gonna trip and do something that you just don't like. You know, and I'm not talking about the little things like which way he rolls the toilet tissue I already put the seat down or, you know, really locked the door or something like that.
Speaker 2:I'm not talking about those little things. Those little things we really should just miss fast. If you want to stay married for a long time, you're gonna realize your husband might drops, your wife might drop stuff on the floor. They have shirts, their pants. Well, don't hurt to pick it up. Go pick it up, you know. If it's really bothering you, if it's not body, wait for him to pick it up or her to pick it up, you know. But don't make a big deal out of those small things, hey man.
Speaker 4:Keep this in mind as well. Oh, when you are, deal with marriages. And I want everybody to understand this if you got a issue about, let's say, it's all About the child in school, alright, deal with that issue about the child in school. Don't bring up something that happened two years ago. Don't bring up something that happened five years ago. Keep everything you see become. Now you're throwing laws in a fight that should have been distinguished a long time ago. And what happens? You got to keep the lines of communication open. That's the key. I'm gonna say that's the key to marriage. The enemy knows he can stop talking. Talking. He got you Because now he's gonna put thoughts in your mind Because you're not communicating. Well, you have one that can diffuse one thing. Sometimes I may get heated, can speak to me and give me scriptures. I got to come down. I got to humble myself as a man of God because the word gonna be right. Sometimes she can be wrong and I give up scriptures. You got all the scriptures. You say this is what God says and we need that in marriage. We we have village of the. You know the name. She helped me and I help her.
Speaker 4:There are times a man, I'm walking. I may stumble, she's the other, catch me and she may stop. Remember we had a little game going on. We first got married. You may remember that honey man, he's not gonna let you out, love me. We used to go back and forth you are love me. You know me, man. We was going at no, no, but love you, boy, you gonna love me. Why? Because we listen this. All of us are brain. We go further.
Speaker 4:Bring something to the table and if you love, if you love a person you know, you go and read first Corinthians, chapter 13. It talks about and one thing I like you say love. Keep no record of wrongdoing. Stop putting out that resume Every time you get mad. You got a whole list of stuff. Oh, you know, you did this in 1992 and you did this in 2005. Yeah, maybe, man, in 2018. You know, talk to her. Don't do that. Don't do that, amen. If you are going about the birth chicken, all about the birth chicken, keep it in bound. Don't bring junior. Talk to you, all right.
Speaker 2:Guys, we're nowhere near perfect, you know, and I love, and first lady Pat, I'm sorry, and First lady passes says all the time because we're not perfect. It took us 41 years to get what we are today. We still not perfect. But what? What we do is now we allow the word of God to be our mediator. So we might be going back and forth because we're opposite. We're opposite is day and night. Everything he liked, he likes chickens. I can't stand, you know, we're just, we're just opposite.
Speaker 2:But what we do is when we're going banner and back and forth and one of us it could be either one of us might quote the word. Once the word comes forth, we have our saying we say yes, dear, once you. Once we say yes, dear, conversation over. Okay, the word has come forth, we just got to get in line with the word. So our next Point we wanted to make is and I know that there's a old song say about 50, 50 love, okay, not 70, 40, not sick, you know, but not 70, 30, but 50, 50, no league. We say that it's a hundred hundred.
Speaker 4:We have to give a hundred percent of our time and our love to each other and that can be a challenge at times, because when you got couples, you got believe it or not, you got couples in in relationship. They compete with one another, but they're competing in the wrong spirit, you know me. They compete one another and just to, just to, just to warm up one person man.
Speaker 2:We're just together with my wife heard.
Speaker 4:I heard when she going through, I'm going through and I promise you this. When she having a rough day and I call and she said, baby, this is. I said, come on, let's pray. I'm gonna pray with a rat D in a rat. Yeah, why? Because I, she'll caught. Encourage me. She says, don't worry about it, god got it. Then she knows, you tell me, remember that sermon you preach, remember what you say to the church and then what it does is bring that spirit down. So we, we work together. We, we working together. Like you said, you got 41 years. I remember that house.
Speaker 4:If you're not putting in the house when you, when the door fall off, you ain't gonna fix it. Or when the wonders broke, game on, fix it. Oh, you know when things are happening, the roof, meet dog, you ain't gonna fix it. You don't invest in your marriage. You only gonna get out what you put in. You don't believe me. I tell you what. Don't put nobody in the ATM machine in the bank and go up there Tomorrow, get me a thousand dollars. You ain't put nothing in. That ain't nothing coming out. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:When we, when we got married with young, we did everything wrong. I'm gonna tell y'all right now we did everything wrong. We didn't get no counseling, we just jumped up and got married and we paid for a lot of stuff that we dealt would be part of what I had to deal with. That's why we don't mind about sharing. I'm we transparent. We did some stuff, I did some stuff. Hey, man, she did some stuff, we did something in our marriage, but God kept us together because we were saved and in the mid my mama's there to me. She says to save people ought to be able to get along, and I know forgot that. So another word if you know, if I'm right, you right now, god is the one that's gonna be right at the end of the day, because pride will give you a false sense of yourself and you thank you all in the bag of chips and God got away. I bring you back to yourself and let you see yourself. But we're in this together. We are all in your luck.
Speaker 4:Then I Think I'll share with on past the area about, about the clay, and that was that that really helped us. Help me out, he helped my wife out when we was in a marriage class ourselves and they gave us some clay, they gave us a white clay and they gave us some black clay and we had to mix it together until we only saw one come. You know, and he'll come by and look at it. He said, no, I still see too much white, you ain't mixing the good. So when two lives come together, her life disappeared, my life disappeared. We become as one, but we still got our own personality. We have to work on that, amen.
Speaker 4:You come from two different backgrounds. You come in from two different homes where you was raised, but you love each other enough to say you know what. I am willing to compromise so I can be with the one I love and you want to give up some things in marriage. She was to give us some things in marriage, but you give it up for it For both of you. Amen, to be happy. Amen, watch this. I'm gonna share this with y'all. You know, sometimes my wife was young and another couple started having problems. She would come to me and start talking about their problem and then she would take the woman side and I'll take the man side, and then we end up arguing about other folks' problems and all of a sudden, god just dropped us.
Speaker 4:But when we arguing- about.
Speaker 4:We married each other, but we don't got into it about another person's problem and we don't even know the whole situation. We don't know the whole situation. That's why I don't like to. I don't counsel people unless both of them are there, because you gonna give me your side and then you gonna make your side bigger than your room. So listen, let's work together. You know what I mean, but remember the lines of communication. That's very important.
Speaker 4:I got to hit this because in it and our pastor, pastor Eric, been in the armed forces. He understand this and don't go in the armed forces. When the enemy want to take you out, the first thing he does is take out the lines of communication. Back in my day, back in my cab, on watching days, you know what I mean. They cut out the telegram wire so you can't communicate, amen. When they were back and moving up World War I, they cut down the telegram poles and they don't want you to communicate with your commander, so they'll stop the lines of communication. And once that's cut off, you know what I mean. You can't get no instructions, you can't get no advice, you can't get no counsel.
Speaker 4:Always keep the lines of communication open and let me help somebody else. Do not try to discuss stuff while you're angry. I love somebody. If you table it, well, make sure you're talking about it. Don't table it and push it back and make that that pound big that you already got that stuff out in 1992. You know, get rid of that stuff. You say we ain't gonna talk about it tonight, later, but make sure you're talking about it. Don't push it until by all of a sudden now you're gonna make love. You know I'm not wearing it back. No, no, no, we need to talk about that. We're gonna come up again. Amen, all right.
Speaker 2:Amen. Entitlement is one thing that we wanted to discuss, and we live in a generation now where everybody think they're entitled. I shouldn't be treated like this. I shouldn't be talked to like this. Our entitlement is something that you should push aside. Replace it with gratitude. Just be thankful. Whenever we're going through changes, I always tell myself Lord, I saw, thank you, god, I thank you for the roof over my head. I thank you for my husband coming home every night. I thank you that we have food on our table, and I just started to give gratitude to the Lord for the things that I have and that the things that I think I'm missing is just not that important anymore.
Speaker 4:And that comes to as you get older and you'll walk with God and you'll walk with your wife. You start valuing things. When you're younger, you know you put all the values on certain things and those things that is not as important. You ever notice about older people your grandmother, your great grandmother, the greatest values in this family staying together. And you ever notice when you young in your marriage and you just about to blow your top and you start talking to older person, they'll look at you and smile and they'll laugh because they don't bend through it. It's just a tip over everything and sometimes all you can say never throw the baby out with the bath one. In other words. You know, sometimes people mess up their life, but love will keep you, amen, from making a bad mistake. If you listen to God, it'll keep you from making a wrong mistake. And then a lot of times you know you don't went through the hard part. You know you don't went through the hard part. It don't make no sense for me to try to trade this must-thing in. You know what I mean. I don't know how to drive a new car. They got too much technology, too much stuff. You know, amen, they say. You know, dance with the girl you came with. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:I met my wife in eighth grade. In eighth grade, I met in eighth grade and I'm telling you, we were friends. Our life went apart but we came back together and 81 and God have kept us together since. Now I've been knowing over 50 years. I thank God for that. You know what I mean Because we were friends first.
Speaker 4:But even in midst of that I knew she was going to be a good wife. I knew that I wasn't quite ready, but I knew she was going to be a. She wasn't ready either. She thought she was, but she was. You know what I mean. She looked at Paul, but she, she had some stuff too that she had to deal with. Amen. But God kept us and I'm going to tell you when we got saved amen. That puts on the right direction, on the right point. I love my wife. I thank God for her. Amen. That's not what I'm going to do for her. I'm going to be there for her. You know what I mean Amen. I'm going to tell you about the church. I'm going to tell you about my children. I'm going to tell you about my wife. Amen. Somebody.
Speaker 2:That's funny and we do that with each other. I remember when my husband first guy saved and when Lord saved him, the Lord saved him. I would save a couple of months before him, but we were in a parking lot one day.
Speaker 2:And you see, you never know, you don't ever say what you want. But my husband was really saved. I mean, he was really trying to change his life and the Lord was really dealing with him. And so we pulled up into the parking space and I guess the guy thought it was his parking space.
Speaker 2:And he jumped out and he's yelling and screaming at my husband, my husband's sitting in the car. He's not saying a word. Next thing, you know, I don't know what happened I opened the door, I get out the door and I'm yelling and screaming at the man. I remember I got saved first and my husband had to remind me to say honey, you saved, remember. But we do those things together. But I tell you, like my husband said, we've been married 41 years. We're not the same. We got 23. Life has changed over those years. So you have to learn to deal with changes. Even the things that we like change as we matured. Those things we like when we was 23 years old, we just don't do anymore now that we're 64 years old. So life changed. So you have to be able to adjust with the change, with the change in your spouse. I buy him certain food, but I've learned that those foods change because of his diet maybe.
Speaker 2:We used to go to the park a lot, we used to do a lot of outdoor things. We don't do that much outdoor things anymore. So life just changed and adjust. Just don't get stuck in one thing and say, oh babe, but you used to, okay, but now you don't feel that same weight, so adjust to it.
Speaker 4:And that's the key. That's different. You find out what makes your spouse happy. All right, follow what makes your spouse happy. I remember.
Speaker 4:But get back to that incident about the man. I hadn't never seen my wife get upset. I really haven't. You know, we had no, not like that man that's so dumb, that's so ready to fight, that's so ready to fight. I mean, she ready to fight? That man, look at her like what's wrong with you? And I'm trying to rub up down and how about? Shout out but hey, man, she ready to go. But I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:But at the same time, you know we'll say now, as we look at our life, you know you're going to have let me say this to you, I'm seriously every marriage will have some challenges and some points in your life and I call those points and challenges growth spurs, how you handle it. Either you're going to grow or you're going to shrink back. And one of the biggest issues I think it's pride. Man, you got to handle that pride. Brothers I'm talking to the brothers you ain't going to be right all the time. No, you ain't gonna be right To Abraham.
Speaker 4:Listen to your wife, even though what Sarah was crying about was dead wrong, god, listen to your wife, and I promise you brothers, if you learn how to say yes, dear, you can sleep better at night. The food takes better. I'm telling you man, hey man, you gonna lose your health. Just say yes, dear, you know what I mean. You gonna be alright. Just say yes, dear, hey man, because one thing about it takes two to all, if you wish. Eventually they gonna talk to themselves for a minute and eventually they gonna go in there and find something else to do. And you know what you do. You get up and you come in and you kiss them Love. No harm, baby, you know I love you, my dad shared this with me.
Speaker 4:My dad said to me, man, you know, they were married about 70 years, not close to 70 years, they're still alive. My dad said I think me and my wife had a really serious argument, and he was talking to me. He said son. He said, man, you think me and your wife are gonna have no problem. I said well, you know. He said I'm gonna tell you what I do. Dad reached in his wallet past the air, pulled out a picture with mom about 19 years old. He said every time they get a serious argument.
Speaker 4:He put out that picture. Remember why he married that girl. You didn't say girl, he said that girl. He said everything. Just leave him. Then all the anger, all that stuff, just leave him. I got one of my wife Boy ask that picture. She said I'm gonna lay across. Tell her somebody. Hey them, jerry curls every night. Then you know he's gonna have them out, gonna look at that picture. Remember why I married her Always. Remember why you married your wife.
Speaker 4:All that sweet stuff, no sweet letters that you wrote. Remember that stuff Because I'm telling you the thief come not but to steal, kill and destroy and brothers, when you know you got a good wife or sister, when you do, you got a good husband. Oh, let me say this I gotta say something. Give me a minute. I want you to stop hanging around for a man who always got issues with a man trying to put that stuff on you or what they want. Don't hang around. If you can't help them, I ain't gonna use them. I can't do it Cause my husband ain't like that. All men like that and all the devil is a lie. All the devil is a lie and I'm telling you you got to watch that spirit. Because they are miserable, they want you to be miserable, amen.
Speaker 4:Now, a lot of times, you know, we run into couples and they have issues and you ain't gonna be able to help everybody, because some people don't want to be helped, but you can help somebody by the life you live, how you treat your wife. Watch this every marriage is different. Some marriages, you know, the wife do this for the husband or the husband do this for the wife and she like that. Don't try to push that into another marriage. Cause they happy what they doing. Girl, you mean to tell me my man do this or my man do that for me? That's your household. You got to rule them trustful. I'm happy over here. You know what I mean. So you be happy over there, I'll be happy over here, and then we'll be in a happy place.
Speaker 2:But don't try to bring that into my marriage Mess up my marriage.
Speaker 4:I remember, you know, my wife, you know she'll fix my food.
Speaker 1:And she'll bring it to me.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I know somebody I ain't got that that's your marriage, you know.
Speaker 4:And then one of them, one of them something came up. He ought to get up and leave that alone. You mess with something else a little bit. Leave it alone. It will work for us. My wife's gonna problem with that Because she know I'll fix her as well. You know. She know I cook, I go in the kitchen, I do a little something. I'm gonna tell y'all another thing in 41 years I remember me and my wife got married when she was mad at me and she didn't know I can cook. We had just got married and she was mad, but she wouldn't say nothing. I wouldn't have started cooking. But that food was smelling good and she had started trying to be mad. I knew she was hungry, so I had to excuse myself. I said I'm not full of food, I'm trying to eat, like that. But she could be mad. But we just bust out of the store and laugh. But these are the things that you're gonna encounter over years of marriage. Amen, Amen, Amen.
Speaker 2:That man cooked at four o'clock in the morning, okay, so, and the one other thing that he does, that we do together, is that when we come in the room, when one person walk in the room together, we walk over and we kiss each other. It's just a habit now. Today we went to Starbucks, Got ready to leave Starbucks, we kissed each other. I know, yeah, but we don't when we leave out the room. We don't leave out the room without kissing each other. We might at the house.
Speaker 2:You know you're in and out the room all the time, but he'll call me back, hey, hey, hey, you forgot something. So it's just a habit that we have now of what are we years. A lot of people like to checklists. Okay, so what's a great marriage? So here's a few things that we have on the checklists. Both of you must be patient and kind and thoughtful one to the other. You have to think about doing nice things. Sometimes we have to. It should come automatically, but sometimes it doesn't. So put a little thought into it.
Speaker 2:My husband travels, sometimes for revivals or different things, and I used to have to pack all of his clothes. I still pack them. He picks them now but I used to put like a little note or something in his clothes so that when he gets aware of it he can know that I'm praying for him. I'm thinking about it. My Austin, a Texer, he'll call me. You know, one of the deacons using many jokes about it, because I said man, you just left out the parking lot. What you calling that woman, but is those little thoughtful things?
Speaker 2:over the course of your day that you do. Bill each other up, don't tear each other down. We all have weaknesses and bad points, and you could spend a lifetime talking about a person's weakness, but instead why don't you? Talk about the great things that you do, what you love about that person, what makes you happy, and think about it through the course of the day. Don't always think about those things that irritate you, to make you mad or upset.
Speaker 2:Listen when the other person is talking, listen actively and don't listen to respond, but listen to what they're saying. Try to hear their heart, why they're saying this, what's going on with them. You know, my husband taught my boys that here, what they're not saying as well as what they're saying. Sometimes we're trying to build up to what's really in our hearts. So we see a lot of stuff and if you jump on the first thing you say, you might miss out on what we're actually trying to say. So listen intently and then speak with transparency.
Speaker 2:You know, don't always try to. You know well, when we talk to the Lord we do little. These and that Get to the point. You know, we don't have to add so much into it. But be honest and open. If you can't be honest and open with your spouse, who can you be honest and open with? Like he said, we're friends first. You know to hang out together and make jokes and I would pretend like I was one of the fellows and lean over in the car with him and hey, man, look at that woman over there.
Speaker 2:You know that kind of we were joking guys, okay, but we were just hanging out with each other and I said this earlier and I can't say it enough Be quick to forgive. Don't hold on, don't stop speaking for days and days, cause you still mad this Thursday and you still mad about what happened on Sunday. You know, don't hold on, forgive fast, it'll help you, you know, and then see the good in one another. You know that goes back to what we said earlier, but you know, see the good in it. You know, don't always see the bad, don't always have to pick up what went wrong. You know, and that's what everything in your life there always be a hold on what went wrong in your job, what's going wrong in your neighborhood and they were trying somebody to see you.
Speaker 2:All you got is negative things to say. You know, try to have a positive and then we're a team. So act as a team. You know you work together as a team. We watch basketball, football, those different sports, you know. But if everybody. Get out there and do what they want to do and try to shine and come together. You're going to lose, I can tell you right now, if you're not working as a team.
Speaker 2:If you want to pass the ball in basketball, you got to take all of the shots. Well, the team the other team going to figure that out and it just going to guard you. So then you're going to be surrounded. Everybody else is going to be sitting out there not doing anything. So we're together as a team, talk to each other and work out difficulties and problems in the family as a team. Don't keep things from each other, you know. Talk it out and then, of course, most of all, love one another. Well, and I wasn't going to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Thank you, honey. So you have to respect every person's boundaries. There are some things that my wife got a line drawn that you don't cross those lines. You have to understand what those lines are. Remember I say people change every 10 years, Every 10 years. So you got to make that adjustment to change. Okay, as you get older, you change it. You have children, you change it. You know what I mean. But love will make the adjustment to that change. Remember, you got physical stuff going on as you get older. You got to make adjustments to accommodate that, whether it be the man, whether it be the woman. Remember you love that person and you are the ride and live and say ride and die, ride and live with that person Because that's your closest thing to you.
Speaker 4:The Bible says this you know David and Jonathan were so close. You know Jonathan knew that he was going to be David's going to be the next king, and so when they met, they just revealed all the issues to each other. They stripped each other, looked at each other. This is my room. This is what I really think. That's what marriage is all about. You got to hide in front of your spouse. You know what I mean. Be transparent with your spouse.
Speaker 4:You got a problem talking out. Don't argue that. Talk it out. Honey, we got a problem.
Speaker 4:Sometimes things be a little uncomfortable to talk about, but you got to talk, you got to talk. If you don't talk it out, all it's going to do is that mole here is going to become a mountain. It started out small, where you can step over it and deal with it. It becomes bigger and you start tripping over it. You keep on until somebody hurt themselves and you look back. You know that started five years ago. When you see something going on, stop what you're doing. Okay, we need to talk about this before we get to a point where you can't talk about it or you don't want to talk about it. So always keep the dialogue open.
Speaker 4:I'm going to say it again that's very important. Keep the dialogue and communication open. We about done, we about right time. Keep the dialogue. I'm going to talk about something I've been waiting on. That's sex. Everybody say whoa. I know, I know. Let me say this about sex. Sex is not bad. Intimacy is not bad. Seder took what God made good and made it bad and tried to make it nasty. What you mean bitch. But what happens is when God made Adam and Eve the Bible, they both were naked, All right. Adam saw Eve who she was, he saw Adam who she was. But what Satan does? Satan don't want there to be sex, to be an instinctive married Satan. You can do it when you get ready and that becomes so custom of people now that a lot of times I'm going to say this nobody will get offended A lot of times they may.
Speaker 4:God would like all of us to be all virgins, but because of society, sometimes we don't. Now, when you talk about sex, can I say this Sex is 10% of your marriage. 10% Like no, nothing, nothing. What you going to talk about after you get out of bed, what you got to say, man, that's taking for good, but maybe you don't let. You can't say that for so long you got to have something to talk about outside the bed. You know what I mean, because once you get physical, once you get finished, you look at each other, you stare at each other. What you ain't got nothing to come, or you ain't got nothing to talk about. You can't laugh. Look, don't be calm, think about it. And we put so much emphasis on it.
Speaker 4:There are rules of a lot of marriages. It's important, it's necessary, for the Bible says this to the wife and to the husband your body don't belong to you, it belongs to the other person. Now, men and women don't use sex as a weapon. In other words, you know to get what you want. You know what I mean. If you don't buy what I want, it ain't going to give them that. No, you're in the wrong. That's wrong. Come on, come on with me, don't get off now. Stay with me. You're in the wrong. Sex was made for mutual enjoyment between both parties, not different one person to get off, no, no, it don't work like that. It's both parties coming together. You like anything else in your marriage? That's got to be coming together, okay, and it's got to be in job, all right. And when you look at it from God's perspective, it was good, like.
Speaker 4:I said, the enemy came in trying to make it nasty, trying to make it out of bounds, and that's when we got a lot of problems now with people, young folks, who don't want to get married and want to keep doing that and think it's right, but not according to the word, but when they want to get married, they want to get married under the banner of God and that's it. They want God to bless the marriage, but they don't want to live according to the principles in the midst of that blessing. All right, and think about it. When you look at your wife and you marry your wife, you marry for the whole package. Okay, if there are some issues in that area in the bedroom, talk about it. Don't wait until them to try to fake it, until you make it.
Speaker 4:Now, talk about it because eventually, on a surface, you got to be willing to talk about it, the honest about it, be open about it. As a matter of fact, a lot of that stuff you'll be talking about before you get married. So you're not going in. A woman can't have children. You didn't let the man know A man can't have it, the woman know. So that way you won't be blindsided inside the marriage. You should have told me Be honest, Because you're planning on spending the rest of your life with that person. You understand, amen? That's all I'm going to say about that, because I don't want to get too deep into it, because but I just want y'all to get the genesis of what we talked about.
Speaker 4:We've been married 41 years. We've had some highs, we've had some lows, we have some challenges. The one thing I appreciate about this lady right here, she's a rock, amen. She love God and she love me. Hello, and I love her, and a lot of times we'll just roll over and, hey how you doing All right, and sometimes you know she like to watch Perry Mason and all these type of I like Kepler movies. Every now and then I give them watch Perry Mason movies.
Speaker 2:I'll be asking a question.
Speaker 4:She know all the characters. Sometimes she'll come in and watch a little Kepler with me. You know what I mean. She be there. She know we're going to see you be there, you know. And every now and then she like little Christmas movies, the one that makes you cry. You know what I mean and she watch me around.
Speaker 4:I'm going to hear now that you got to be really satisfied. And one thing I like about Pat's In air and y'all know I'm finna tell on y'all they got what they call date night. Much respect, much little big guy for me and mama. You will not get them to talk on date now. I call you on date night. Pat's gonna give me three minutes. You got three minutes. Daddy bitch Gotta hang up and he would get up there for a boy and pass the call. He gonna get off there for he can be talking to president by. He get off there for me, pass on the floor. I got to go and I respect that. I laugh, I tease about it. But, brother, you keep on doing what you do and pass. We keep on loving every. Thank y'all for the invite. We get ready to get off and love you. Appreciate you so much Amen.
Speaker 1:All right, that was awesome talk, awesome, awesome Bishop. We thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you so much. We we are no pass. It took down some notes. We've been monitoring the chat and I mean it's been going back and forth. I was wondering was somebody on TJ? They're riding live, so I guess that's a. That's a good. That's a good thing. When you talk about riding live, yeah, you know. You know I always hear right and die, but I don't. I haven't too much hurt riding live, so I'm thank God for that.
Speaker 3:Oh, Wow, let me see who I okay. So Lindsay said it's the small things, and I totally agree with that. The small things matter so much. Mm-hmm you know, it's the things that you Don't even really think about. It's that that little thing to be like oh, he was thinking about me, oh, she was thinking about me. So I like that. Lindsay, thanks for that, because it's definitely the small things that make the big things so much better.
Speaker 1:I would say, bishop, that we had the people Coming in and said I asked the question. You know, was it talk good? And everybody, you know people saying so good, absolutely. So we really thank you. And, lady Cheryl, you know we got to get y'all a little clap Alright. So we have the phone number out there. If somebody wants to call in and ask some questions, I mean they can go on, they can ask the questions Through chat as well. We I do have a couple of prayer requests and but if you want to call in and you want to ask Bishop and Lady Cheryl some Questions we got a little bit more time you can dial into seven five four, two, two, two, two, one nine. That's seven five four, two, two, two, two, one nine, and you can ask them some questions. You're not asking us no questions tonight, right, babe? No, no.
Speaker 3:I have a question.
Speaker 1:Okay, no, you don't need to call in.
Speaker 3:My question is about sex, one of my favorite. You know, the Bible says that the bed is undefiled, right? So when it talks about it being undefiled and you kind of like, because my thing ever ain't on it. Yeah, collaborate on that. Just a little bit for me, oh.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, what for y'all.
Speaker 3:You can answer my elaborate.
Speaker 4:Go in the bedroom and close it, though it ain't nobody watch you with girl. Oh, all right, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Now. Does that answer your question?
Speaker 3:Yes, Like you know, if you can add things like yeah, he's asking questions, did he just say?
Speaker 1:he said if you go? He said if you go in, you close the door. Right there you go. Right, don't be, want to be whipped? No, no, no, whipping, no, son, you know, patsy don't like to get this, she wouldn't like to get the software, she want to get those Hard wheels, like cat woman, you know oh.
Speaker 4:I also Seriously, though, patsy. You know people, people try to make that Big than what it is, but what you do between your husband and God, god is. You know. God is the only one that's got to be able to judge your and we. If he's comfortable with it and you're comfortable with it, you know what I mean. God's well, please. You know what I mean Because you got different watch this. You got different cultures that do different things and different customs. Always keep that in mind. But what you want to do, you want to honor God inside the vehicle as well outside the vehicle. Okay.
Speaker 3:Okay. So one more thing I like what you said was, like you know, keep things in the present. Even though you may be disagreeing or you, you having your moment to just keep things in the present. It's so important because when you bring up stuff from the past, it actually shows that you really haven't forgiven For it and because it's still there. So I really like that. And keeping a line of communication open Was another great mom. These nuggets you guys dropped was so awesome. I was writing them down and I'm actually put them up on my little board so when I'm having an issue I can go to my. You know my topics and they're okay. All right, I can do this I don't have to be too mad at yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I said you know, for all of those, please you like and share. Please make sure you like, like this video, like this, you know, and make sure you share it. There is somebody that needed to hear this talk tonight. You know I it was. It was good for us and many of you said it was so good for you all, and so you can always go back and Look at it and once we put it on the Apple podcast, you can listen to it as well. But we want you to make sure you like and share and because, again, somebody needs you you may know somebody whose marriage needs to have this Talk and and from Bishop and Lady Cheryl, we really need to have this talk, so we want you to go and like and share. Make sure you share with your family and with your friends and your co-workers. You know a lot of.
Speaker 1:You know this is spreading the gospel, right? Am I right about that, bishop? Yeah, this is spreading the gospel because, as Bishop said, the enemy wants to destroy the marriage. He wants to destroy what God has made, anything that God has made. He wants to destroy it, and so this is part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know where, where we need, we need God. We have to have to be the center of that. So if you want to call in again, we only have about a couple of more minutes 754 222 2219, you can call in and ask your question. Don't be shame, right? You know, you know, I know Ferg and easy and Samson is on here.
Speaker 1:You know, I know they they not shamed they. You know they love to call in, yeah, so but yeah, we would want you to call in. You got any any other thing you want to say? Bishop and Lady Cheryl, how did you enjoy the talk tonight? Doing the talk I enjoyed?
Speaker 4:it with a blessing.
Speaker 1:I always thank.
Speaker 4:God for first cause. She always gonna have some great insight and I appreciate it. I want to say this to all the married couples and how Satan works If he can divide the family, he can pick off the children one by one. Wow, he can have the children. He can destroy their seed as well. You always want to divide the family. Destroy the family, so you do that Family. Destroy the family, so you do all you can to hold your marriage together. Stop listening to the world view and listen to God's deal marriage, because the world say love them and leave them any. What God said, you work it out. Yes, you work it out. You do the best you can to work it out. You know what I mean. All of us got issues, but you work it out.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean that woman that met you that the will have so many of them.
Speaker 4:But she was able to deal with those issues when she ran into the Messiah Right. So you work it out. They may sometimes, you know, it may take a while, but you can work it out.
Speaker 2:All right baby.
Speaker 1:Gotta give you something to bitch. You gotta give you something to. You know we were talking man being bishop me. Yesterday he was preaching to me. As you know, every time I call bishop, I know I got a sermon, you know, and this is a writer, we know I, he got a sermon for me. Yeah, we always got a sermon. We were talking about even getting ready for the night and we were. We were talking about how, how People some people, especially, I would say, the younger generation or whatever they look at marriage more as a contract versus a covenant.
Speaker 1:And so with a contract, you can amend a contract. You, you know, at the end of the contract it tells you how, when you have a dispute, what you need to do, and they say, look, we either go to a mediator or we can just go straight to court, and so that's what happens. You know, they can tear it up, they can amend it. Try to amend it. Or I don't like what you're doing, I don't like what this. So let me know what.
Speaker 1:This contract is null in void, but you can't do that with a covenant. You can do that with a contract, but you can't do it with a covenant. And so that's why they go straight to the judge. Now we want to get divorced because they treated as a contract versus a covenant, like bitches say, hey, you're gonna work it out. You know, unless it's a, you know it has to be some abuse. You know, get all of these kind of things, that's. That's really that. I think it really messes, messes up marriage. But if it's communication or irreconcilable difference, why we can't reconcile, we should be able to reconcile you know, you know Bishop said hey, it's not an option.
Speaker 3:It is not an option. If you go into, it stand. If it don't work, the option is I'm getting a divorce. If you, you got to take that option off.
Speaker 1:The table off the table from the job.
Speaker 3:You gotta get that to y'all, you gotta be able to figure quickly. I'm telling y'all I wrote some stuff down, I'm excited about using this when I talk to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, including for myself. That's it. It's not an option, so we're gonna take that off the table before we get married, but I love that, all right you know, I'm gonna say this too and I'm done, uh, kind of funny.
Speaker 4:But man the wife was having, they couldn't get along. So the wife said you know what, I'm out of here. And she went and packed her suitcase. She took a little longer than man. We're going to die upstairs with this suitcase. She said where you going. He said where you let your head or lay in mind. Uh-huh, it's gonna be. My god and your whole team are gonna be both here. We're gonna be doing it together.
Speaker 3:I'm right, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that even to, even tonight, bishop and and Lady Cheryl, um, you know, uh, for a good friend of ours from North Carolina, ferg, is on the line. He's. He's a widower, but he said, hey, it's good. You know, you, you was good for a single folks as well. At tonight, um, Samson said, you know, stop listening to the worldview and start listening to God's view. That was a fire that he put next to that. So that was some good nuggets, as Patsy was saying, very good like it. So we again, we thank you all you know, for taking time out of your business schedule to To do this for us, because you didn't have to do it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't have heard the end of can you believe? Bishop turned me down.
Speaker 4:No, I wouldn't do y'all like that. You know, I love you, love you guys. Yes, as fast, as you bought a self-tilted rip my month, so I had no choice.
Speaker 1:Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man. Well, again, uh, we want you to like and share, we want you to be able to listen to. We're on the apple podcast. Uh, we want to make sure we have the prayer tonight. We want to make sure we have the prayer.
