Marriage That Goes the Distance | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw and relevant.

It's a big week.

It is. Tell them it's marriage boot camp week.

We hadn't done one in two years, so it really is big.

It is. We start the day this podcast dropped. We will be starting in Monterey, California. Gonna be so much fun.

We're kind of deciding on future, kind of deciding on the future. We've done it. We've done it. Not the same thing, but we've done it the same way. It's a getaway. I keep, I don't know, 23 years. Hope was the first one, like 90, 99, something like that, I don't know. And then we skipped one here and skipped one there. So about 23 times I think.

And they're always so, so good.

They are. And it's, it does seem like it's a little harder to get people to leave life for two and a half days and come to a place.

I don't know why I was me.

And you were looking for ways that I don't, I don't ever hear of these anymore. And I hear like little small groups, I hear things like that. Like people that do little marriage enrichment things and they'll go to or Friday night cabin. So yeah, I know stuff like that. But I'm talking about a big full blown meals, banquets, marriage conference. I know we went to several of them in the early days of our marriage and they were pretty, honestly one or two of them, pretty revolutionary.

Well, I will say this. You know, the divorce rate every year gets higher and higher and higher. And I know just in general, some of the couples that we have been in contact with, people who struggle, people who want advice, people who, who are calling us, you know, when they're struggling in their marriage, they're the very ones who don't sign up to come to anything. So you know you. So where you want to go? Well, this way, vest, you get better at the things you invest in, right? So if you don't invest in it, you know, how can you understand that?

Because I knew how much because I paid for all three of my kids marriage on some level. Some of them, you know, us and the other parents of course split the bills on things. But for most part, I was engaged heavily in all three of my kids marriages. When I, I've always said this and it sounds so simple and it's one of them little catch things, but I'm, it amazes me. I'm hearing of people paying 50, $100,000 now to get married. And I'm hearing like, it's not that abnormal. I'm not talking. That's not like rich people, like, they go in debt to do this. Like, parents will get second mortgages or max out all their credit cards and won't go to a $200 marriage conference to stay married. That does not make sense to me. As though you had all the information you needed to make it successful when you got married. So I'm venting a little bit. We still have great crowds, but it's a little harder pulling to get them there.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Somebody you're like, but you don't come. I mean, it's the same thing with everything, Ron. I mean, like, I'm sitting here pouring today over my inner circle, you know, that I'm meeting tonight. And it's like, you. You're breaking people's bank if you ask them to pay 29amonth. But they don't mind paying for fingernails and mocha frappuccino.

You ever heard me make that statement? I'll never spend more. I'll never spend more money on anything than I'm willing to spend on my mind.

Yes.

So, like, you know, the. And the fact is, people say, well, think, this ain't what we're talking about at all, but we're on it. So let's just talk about people like, you know, well, everything in the kingdom has to be free. Well, everything in the kingdom ain't free.

Right?

Like our AI app, my AI, which is getting tens of thousands of hours of use when they give me the reports on it blows my mind. You went, had somebody did your something down on your nails, your hair or something. They looked at you and said, I've been talking to your husband.

She said, please tell your husband that I have been talking to him for hours. This was the funny part, though. Listen, she said about my bruja mother in law. I said, you did not call her a witch. She said, yes, I did.

Go ahead. See, here's my thing. Here's. Here's the little things people don't know. So while we're on it, let's talk about it because we're talking about investing. We're talking about investing in things that. That make your life better. I ran it by how. How am I going to pay for this app about making it something that people, you know, buy like they do any other. Any other subscription? Yeah. And I got some massive blowback. So I just decided, you know what? I'm going to Eat it and believe God. That app cost me $80,000 a year just to keep it open. And then I get charged on how much it's used and it's growing every day and how much it gets used but got tremendous blowback if, you know, $9 a month, $6 a month, you know, and I'm like, how do people.

Think, how do you think you pay for these things?

We do these things. This is, this is major, major companies and technology putting all this stuff together. And then you pay to maintain it, you pay to have it administrated, you pay to have all these things, but you better not charge anybody a dime. And I don't know, you know, I don't, I don't know how people expect us to do that. And a lot of times, if the church has anything like a conference or something that it has to charge for, I'm like, oh, you hear it so bad. Everybody wants everything to be free, but it's not free to me.

Right. And even the calling all queens, I just did, you know, people were saying, well, I don't understand why you have to charge for this. Or I have to pay, you know, $20 to watch it.

Virtually calling all queens was an astronomical amount.

It was over $150,000 that came right out whether it was paid for my checking account. So yes, there are ministry checking. Yes. Administration fees and paying those hotel rental cars.

And there's renting equipment, renting church technicians.

Not our church. We rented that technician.

Then you got to pay all the stuff to get it online and all that. I mean, it's so much. And like the, the marriage conference is like we emptying out the whole building and taking all the staff to stay in a hotel with us during the marriage conference.

Right.

You know, those are huge expenses. So we go back to this right here. Be willing to invest in things that improve the quality of your life. Yes. I like it when your nails are done. I love your hair. But the fact is, I'm glad you want your marriage to be better. I'm glad you want to be a great wife. I'm glad you want to be a disciplined person. I'm glad you want to be a prayer warrior. I'm glad all these things that I see books laying around and things that you do that I had to pay for that are self debt that you do because you want with God to improve hope.

Right.

And that's what I wish people would do, that the marriage. I'll get up Thursday night and I'll start with this. Just because Things are natural does not mean things are easy. You may want a house start like that. There's a lot of. There's nothing more natural than falling in love, right? I'm on blow smoke right now. I fail, I free fall in love with you. I was free fallen most wonderful feeling. Then we had the most wonderful courtship. I don't know that I would change a thing. Nothing more natural than two people falling in love. Nothing more difficult than sustaining a 50, 60 year relationship, right? There's nothing more natural than a woman who breastfeeds a child. I walked in and saw what you went through trying to breastfeed our children. It's totally natural. But it was very frustrating and it was very difficult. And I would encourage people to understand that long after the law of attraction has taken you to the wedding altar, then there are the laws of compatibility that are a whole different ball.

And then you change. And then you're not 19, you're not 25 anymore, you're not 30 anymore.

I am.

But, you know, you're 40, you have children, your bills increase, your health sometimes declines. You know, you've got in laws, you've got job changes, things change. And kids. Yeah, all of that. You evolve, you grow.

Changes. Those are big changes.

The things you used to like, you don't like anymore. I mean, then you get world experience and you're like, oh, wow, I like this. Let's implement that. Or let's. I want to travel more. And the other one's like, but I don't have money to travel. There's just so many factors.

Staying love.

Yes.

And we. The marriage comfort helps with that. Hope. There's a reason God wraps marriage in a covenant.

Mm.

You know, we don't need to get. We don't need to get married. You know, that's kind of old fashioned. Let me tell you something. You better wrap something up. In a covenant, you don't, you don't want it to be something you can leave easily. The whole fact that it's a covenant, I think, tells you that there'll be times every inclination in you is to run, but you stay with something. Because in a covenant, God promises that if you will. Jesus said, if you suffer with me, you will reign with me. And in a covenant, if you go through the times of suffering, the times of reigning are so sweet. We have been through very difficult suffering, but now I feel like we have walked into that time of reigning and I wouldn't trade any places with anybody with our relationship. So I want to launch into a few Things that maybe might salt some people's appetite for a future conference. It's too late to get into this one, but I want to talk about the rule that allows a relationship to go the distance.

It's good. Before we do that, let's talk about our wonderful sponsor, Green Chef. Have you ever been annoyed with misleading like healthy meals? Tired of locking in for another new year's trend? Green Chef cuts through the noise as the the trusted authority in clean eating, delivering only raw real sounds like our podcast farm sourced ingredients. Trust every bite with over 40 clean, custom, customized weekly recipes designed to give you peace of mind, take control of your health without the stress. Let Green Chef do the research, the meal planning, the grocery shopping, and enjoy low prep, low mess meals for every lifestyle. We love Green Chef and honestly, once you try it, you will understand why you'll get it. So right now, go to greenchef.com Randhope G R A Z A and use code randhope Graza to get started with 50% off Green Chef plus free Graza olive oil set in your second and third boxes. This 50% off offer is only available for a limited time, so don't wait. That's code Roninhofen hope garaza@greenchef.com roninhopegaraza Guys.

This is how we help pay the bills. So people like Green Chef. We use these top quality food, top quality recipes. Easy. I cook them all by myself sometimes.

And that's a miracle.

Hope's coming on a little later than me. I'm like, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna do this. I can cook it all by myself and it's yummy. Exactly. And not only that, it helps us do what we do because they're a big supporter of what. So when we give you these things, write it down, check it out. Because we wouldn't put it on here as a sponsor if we didn't believe it would bring value to your life. Amen. I want to talk about the F word.

Forgiveness.

Why is it so hard, baby? Why? Why do we drink poison hoping it'll hurt somebody else?

I think we just like to hang on to our right to be right. And that's rooted in pride. You know, sometimes you just have to forgive and move on and just give up your right to be right. Whether it's your. Your right that you're right in an opinion, in a thought, or you shouldn't have done that to me. An offense. Sometimes you just got to lay that mess down and stop tallying. So sick of hearing the Tallying well, she did it more than I did.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

That's right.

Love keeps no record of wrongs. That's one of the most difficult things in the definition of love. Real defining love is never going to throw it up in your face. It's never going to do that. I have, I have kind of a personal thing. I do some of these little antidotes I do. Sometime maybe I wonder about pushing about on social media if anybody cares. I have a 24 hour rule. What? I always tell you I need 24 hours to flush it.

To flush it.

Okay. Why? Because you have to feel the feelings.

Yeah. You can't just be like, oh, I didn't bother.

You can't because that's a lie. That's a lie. You've been violated, you've been done wrong, you've been hurt. Different levels of hurt. And I didn't bother with. That is not true. That is a lie. And you're not being honest with yourself. And that causes its own kind of problems. But I need a. When I really get run over by somebody, I always tell you, and you know, I'm pretty good about it. I need 24. I need you to let me be. Sulk a little bit. I need you to let me kick myself a little bit. I can't believe I put myself in that position. I got to be angry about it a little bit. I got to process it. And in about a day.

Yeah.

I mean, unless it's just.

Well, that's even biblical. The Bible says don't let the sun go down.

I just need that I can, I can embrace what has happened, learn from what has happened and flush the feelings by the grace of God. By the grace of God now in about a 24 hour period. And that has helped me because I just go ahead and acknowledge I used to be the kind of Christian like, like you said, oh, that ain't supposed to bother me. That's not biblical.

Right. It hurts.

Be angry and do not sin. So God allows me the space to feel the feeling, but I cannot respond in a way that would injure me or the person who has violated me. Right. Because so you got to process the feelings. But after about 24 hours, my best desire is I try not to let it have my focus. If you focus on it, that's when you sustain the feeling. And I can't get over this feeling. And this is gnawing at me. Well, it's gnawing at you because it's a focus. And so I try to remove it, you know, forgetting those things which are behind. I put it in my rear view mirror. There's not one thing I can do about it now. All I can do is try not to in any way, you know, lose a failure. I got to take it and I got to benefit from it in some way.

You got to learn and let it.

And fuel from my life.

So let me ask you this though. I mean talking about, you know, forgetting those things that are behind. Yes, that is scripture. The love that all the things you just said. What about the person who keeps on violating you? The person who just keeps hurting you, hurting you, hurting you. The same thing over and over and over and over.

Let me speak to this. This is tough because there are much less scriptures that I can take you to as a man of God that speak to that. The Bible does speak about love suffers all things and bears all things. And the perpetrator will quote those to you.

And the 70 times seven, forgiveness is not forgiveness.

They will quote those to you.

But there is a way you can forgive. You don't have to position yourself to continue to be hurt over and over and over.

This is where you walk on thin ice and you try to give what you think is godly wisdom. But I can't take you to Philippians 2, verse 11 and read it. But you try to by the spirit, spiritual things, you know, deep calls the deep. So you try to dig deep in you got. What would you do? And people who are in something that is abusive. When I, when I say something is abusive, I don't mean somebody gets mad at you once every two weeks. I ain't talking about that, right? But I'm talking about people who are being chopped down like a tree on a daily basis because they live with someone who has narcissistic tendencies and projects on you and everything is your fault. And they basically have made you a person of no self worth as long as you're in their proximity. That's what I call abusive. You can love and you can forgive from a distance. I don't know anywhere in the Bible where it says if you are determined to sink your ship, that I got to go down in the ship.

And there's another, I think this is so important too is to. You have to know who or what you're dealing with. Is that person following after God or are they so into the flesh? You know, is this person saying I'm doing every. You're looking at your spouse and you know they're going to church, you know they're in the Word. They're. They're trying their best, they've made a mistake. Then three weeks later they might make it. They're on their journey to becoming more like Jesus, whatever. But are they over here just sowing to the flesh rampantly not following God's laws, not in his word, you know. You know, chaos. Yeah. That they're just living in chaos, doing nothing to grow.

I do believe there are things that I could show you in the Bible or separate yourself for a time in the world. It's, you know, legal separation. I don't know about. But I can love you if you're hurting me. I can love you and I can still believe God is going to turn you around. But I can do it from Chicago.

Yeah.

Do you see what I'm saying? I do not believe God wants me to stay there, to get battered and call it love. I do not believe that I want to be devalued as a human on a constant basis to where my own identity. I don't even know what I am anymore. I do not believe that you do those things and call it love. So love is not sitting there taking a pounding. That's not what love is.

Is not love.

And you know, you're. I want. I'm believing God for my marriage. Well, he just hit you over the head with a brick. Yeah, but I'm believing God. Well, you need to believe him. From Florida.

Yeah. You know, let's choose Florida, not Chicago.

There is a way where you can believe, but being near you is harmful to me and for, you know, for my own self preservation as a person. I am believing for your best. I am still in this relationship, but being next to you is too painful. And that's where the godly counsel is tough because you don't want to be given easy permission to find a way out of a relationship.

That's what James Dobson used to call tough love. Remember that? I mean, I can forgive you, but sometimes you got to draw boundaries too. It's tough love. It's like, I love you, but I've got to put some boundaries.

Well, here's what it is. The boundaries have been put there not because of forgiveness, but because of trust. So trust then allows them to earn their way back past the boundaries. Okay, you know, you were on drugs and I can't trust you with this and I can't trust you with the money or I can't trust you with the kids. I. But the last two times you were with the kids, this was good. They earned their way back. They Earned their way back. The boundary. Yeah, whatever. That's what I think. That's the way you would do that is you can't let somebody suck the whole family down, down the drain in the, in the name of. I'm believing for my marriage.

Right.

You can believe from your marriage, but do it from a two different spots to where you can have some sense of order to your life while God. A lot of times giving space gives God room to work on somebody because in the midst of that chaos, it can't be done. Those are extreme situations. I don't counsel that way a lot, but I have heard some people come in and give me some extreme examples where I'm like, you need to get out of that house, you need to get out of that house today. Or vice versa. As a pastor, those are the times you earn your paycheck. Those are not easy counsels. And here again, God has not said a lot in the word about how to treat those type of maladies in a relationship. But the relationship don't have to end. Remove them four times. You know, even when God said to the church at Corinth, it had so many wild things happening that he said, put her out or put that person out for a time. In other words, he said, hand them over to the enemy for a godly outcome. In other words, if they're determined to head down this, let them go ahead and get their beating. And he said there'll be a godly outcome once you've turned them over. And I thought, boy, that is an extreme way of church because if you.

Don'T, you're stepping in the way of their consequence.

Now one of my biggest, most viral clips ever was parents, you've got to stop stepping in the way of God's sowing and reaping law. You keep intercepting what God's trying to do.

We've done it. Oh my gosh, we did it. We've learned some lessons from it.

How you think I can preach it to you?

I know.

And you know what? I used to think that was being a good parent. Don't let them get hurt. They did something stupid. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to take the blow because that's, that's what a, that's what a good man, that's what a good daddy would do. And then you find out if they never feel the pain of what they do, they never have an incentive to change.

Right?

God has a built in incentive in sowing and reaping.

Yeah, he does.

God the incentive of sowing good seed is blessing. The incentive of sowing to the flesh is cursing. The cursing will spank your behind and it's painful. The blessing is so sweet and incentivizes you to do more. So when you as a parent, a husband, wife, a friend, when you keep getting in the way of that, then that law cannot run its course because they get to sow and you have to reap right. You'll resent that after a while because it's not your harvest.

Now, these are extreme things we're talking about in a relationship and in a marriage.

There are extreme examples out there.

But just in a normal relationship, there will be so many times that you have to give up your right to be right and you have to walk in forgiveness because that's God's way.

I saw a little Instagram reel of couples. Me and you got some couples things we follow just to get ideas. And I saw one and you know, they look like maybe they're 75 years old and they were out on the beach and one of them had pushed one over into a wave and then she got up and started kicking and they were out there laughing and, you know, been married 55 years. And the caption of the mom said, I wonder how many times they had to forgive each other to get to here.

So good.

A few. A thousand times. You know, I think a posture of I'm sorry. I joke all the time about you. That's. That's what I've learned. I'm sorry, babe, I'm sorry.

But that's ridiculous.

But I do believe there is a posture that you take that I don't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't even know it. I ran roughshod all over you. I was speaking and you were trying to say something and I didn't even let you. Babe, I'm sorry. There's a posture that makes forgiveness easier still hurt them, fit their feelings. But it makes it easier when you don't are not with the person that has a posture toward I'm sorry. You have to forgive anyway. And something that Denise Boggs helped us with, this really helped me is that the blood of Jesus is enough.

Yeah. You don't have to make them jump.

I never thought about. I never thought about that. I always.

To get forgiveness.

I wanted the person to make it right. But for all the people that have been injured and you can't sit there and wait 20 years on it. I'm sorry. Because you may never get it for.

Them to make it up to you.

The blood of Jesus. I accept the blood of Jesus as payment for what they did. Not for my sins, but for your sins against me.

Right.

That little thing right there. Hope helped me so much when she said that, because in all my years of preaching, I had never thought. I thought about applying the blood to me, but I never thought about applying blood to everybody else. And so would I. Like for you to tell me you're sorry? Yes. But I'm not going to sit there and wait five years and be angry. So what I do. The blood of Jesus is payment enough for the damage that you caused me. And I'm going to release you from that debt, from the blood of Jesus, and I'm going to move on. So I don't know if that helps anybody out there, but that's kind of the way I do it. I mean, we've had some nasty things happen to us. People are like, why didn't y'. All. Why didn't y' all say anything? You know what? The blood of Jesus is enough. And I've always preached something else. God has a way of balancing the books.

Yes, he does. He's always saying, God is a great accountant.

God has a way.

God is keeping track, balancing the books.

You know, I don't want God to get you back. That ain't what I'm saying.

Well, sometimes I do.

But, you know, God has a way. If you don't make it right. God has a way of making it right.

That's right. And then he's our vindicator. He's the judge.

I think the boundaries come into play. Not everything that you need to forgive has violated the boundaries. Sometimes you can have a bad day and you can snap.

Sometimes my hormones are low.

Sometimes hormones are low. And. And what do we call them, those days?

What are you mean, when I'm a meanie. Yep.

You come in there, I can sit on. I said, are you gonna be a meanie today? And sometimes you go or no.

Sometimes I'll say, I don't know yet. Depends. On what? How you act.

But, well, hey, again, you have to joke about it.

You do.

You have to joke about it. Because when their hormones are off.

Oh, we. Oh, we.

So, yeah, not everything that you need to forgive is violated a boundary. I think boundaries have to be put in place. Where you have. Where there's trust issues. When there's a violation that has created a breach of trust, then a guard has to be set up. And I do believe that has to be earned back There's a lot of people that's never been told that they think forgiveness and trust is the same thing. Because if you say, I forgive you, then they'll go. They'll want to go right back out. And they're like, well, you said you forgave me that. No, that's not what you're wanting. You're wanting trust. You're wanting trust. You know, cut your locations back on.

On your phone, right?

Cut them back on. So you set up boundaries where trust has been breached. And then as you have a. What is track rate? What is what I say trust is? Trust is repeated reality. As you give me not one time.

Right. Repeated.

A repeated reality that this is no longer habitual in your life.

There's more in the positive than there is the negative.

Very well put. You got more in the credited account than in the negative account. When you can show me that, then one at the time I will remove the barriers back in. And that is perfectly biblical where guard your heart with all diligence. Out of it flows. Yes, guard your heart. Be diligent about your field. That's your garden. And you be diligent because I can't let you be sowing any old thing in there that you want to, because what gets in my heart don't just mess up your life. It messes my life up. And so I do have the right to set boundaries around my heart and guard it where somebody has violated it before. And trust is a repeated reality. Turn it back. And some of you people who, you know, you need to understand, if you've hurt somebody, they have every right to make you earn that back. Trust is not given. Forgiveness is. Trust is earned. And nowhere, Nowhere in the 2000 pages of my Bible does God command me to trust you.

Right?

He commands me to love you. He commands me to forgive you.

We're talking about going the distance, though, in a relationship, and we started off talking about forgiveness. You'll have to forgive a hundred times a day, a week, whatever. But then you have these people in relationships who are like, well, they did this to me. I'm out. And if you live like that, if you think that you're never going to have a relationship that hurts you or violates you, then you'll be married 968 million times. I mean, you'll just marry and divorce. Marrying, divorce.

I want to. I want to take issue with. With that, not with you. But number one, there's some things that never come out of your mouth. I'm out.

Yeah. I'm getting A divorce. I'm.

I don't ever want it in your head.

Right? You're so in a seed.

I don't ever want it in your head that Ron will leave me. I don't know that. Everybody's like, I don't ever want. I don't ever want to walk out the door and there ever be anything inside of you. Is he coming back? I don't want you to know that. I have that thought right. And I see people thought, I'm out. I shoulda. I never shoulda divorce. Just. I mean, my hamburger's well done. I wanted it medium. And it goes to divorce. And I'm amazed at what goes into the atmosphere. And people think it has no power when you start saying those things within a covenant and you let your spouse know that that is even in your psyche. To me, you're already. You're already putting cracks in the mirror.

You're almost there.

Yeah. You, You. In other words, you. You're letting them know. This thing never was unconditional. It was always conditional.

Right.

That's. That's not marriage love. Yes. Covenant love is agape love. I'm not in a covenant with everybody.

Right.

But I'm in agape covenant with you and hope God has raised the bar high. And that covenant love is what should make you feel safe. Because when I am a meanie, if I'm having a bad off hormone day and I'm a meanie, he ain't going nowhere. Right?

And we're going to work it out.

Right? We'll talk through it, we'll work it out. We will persevere. We will do what we got to do. And we will find a doctor, we.

Will find a hormone.

I'll find a pellet somewhere and I'll pay whatever. If I have to get a second mortgage. Oh, my God. So anyway, those are a posture of I'm sorry and a posture of forgiveness out of the gate. Yeah. Make. Make it easy. Make it easy. Don't make it hard. Be. Be easy to forgive. I get it. I get it. You've had a long day and lay.

Down your pride and give out, give up your right to be right. I think. I think that is the struggle is that. But I was right sometimes. Yes, you were right. But you still got to love the other person enough and more to say, I give up my right to be right for peace in the house.

I know you wanted your coffee to be 164 degrees.

Get out of here.

I need you to forgive me anyway.

We're gonna have a great marriage boot camp this week.

It actually, this drop today, tonight drops on.

It'll be great.

So, guys, we don't. We don't know we're gonna do in the future. We've had a lot of people come to say, take this thing on the road. We've had a lot of people say you need to start doing it virtually and the numbers would explode. But if you came to it, you would know why it's difficult.

So important.

Yeah.

To be in the room.

To be in a room because of the way we do it. But the long and short, we're already thinking about a way we can get it to more people. But as for right now, we got people coming from all over America coming in to Monterey, California, and I can't wait to see what's going to happen tonight with all those wonderful couples. And we're glad you let us talk to you. Hopefully this helps you a little bit because some of you may be wrestling with some of these things right now, and hopefully you got some godly counsel. Yep.

All right, until next time, it's running open, filtered, real raw and relevant.

See you soon.