Secrets to a Lasting Marriage with Guests: Reggie & Kelly Steele | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw and relevant. What are you doing?

Letting you introduce it like you always do, baby.

Yes. And today I'm so excited. As you see, we got friends. Our best friends are here with us. Reggie and Kelly still. They pastor in Phoenix, Arizona.

We need to emphasize friends.

Yes, yes.

We need to emphasize for. This is not. Colleagues in ministry. This is not. You know, I've told people, you got to. You got to get a certain your circle is going to be small if you're doing anything right. Sure. And. But then when you get some real friends who can be where we don't have to come to each other with our title.

Right.

Those are precious. And they're very few. Praise God. That's what these guys are in our life. So when we get together, we don't always talk about church. We talk about Cabo and we talk about. We talk. We talk about love letters. That's what we. Yeah, we talk about that custom. So we're glad to have these guys. And we're going to talk about marriage.

And how to make it.

Are we gonna be serious, though, Ron?

Are we ever serious?

We're not when we were them, but, I mean, we gotta try.

It's gonna be like we are around the table.

We gotta try that. How long y' all been married?

32 years. And you dated for almost three years before we got married. We've been together since high school.

Let's tell the truth. On and off. You was married on and off.

Basically, we never got divorced, but yes. So we met each other at 17.

So they've had some struggles.

17 years old.

17. I was 18.

Yeah.

Hope was. I was 19. She was 19. Oh, no, you were 18. I'm sorry. I was 19. You were 18.

Okay.

So we've been married 35 years this week, right? This week. 35 years. And we've had our struggles, but combined, we've been together over 70 years, right?

Yep.

And I think we got something to say, y'.

All.

Absolutely.

We have learned some things. We have seen some dark times. We've seen some amazing times, but God's grace has seen us through, Right? Absolutely. And we've learned some lessons.

Absolutely. Taking some Ls, some losses and some blessings, but God.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

And when you take some losses and you do. And if people say they don't, I don't believe them.

No, I don't either.

When you take your losses, what do you do? You try to fall forward, right? You fall. You try to fall Forward. You try to. Try to learn from it. I tell my staff a lot of times, don't ever waste a good loss. Don't ever waste a good loss. There's something in a loss you need to find out.

Absolutely.

And it's been probably some of our losses that we've made the best. We've made the greatest changes. Because if you feel enough pain, you'll go, ouch, I don't want to do that again.

Exactly.

And so you shift and you make the adjustments necessary to make sure that that does not revisit you. So anyway, but I'm excited.

I always say we don't have failures. We just learn less.

Learned a lesson.

It's true.

I kind of said that Sunday. I said, failure is not an event. Failure is an opinion.

Yeah, I like that.

Failure's an opinion. But anyway, me and Hope get on here all the time. These people hear us, and we probably have. About a third of our podcasts are about marriage or about something we're going on. We talked about how bad she snores a couple of weeks ago and everything. And I mean, last night. I know it. We were in. How do you know when she was in debate, 10 minutes last night. I tapped her.

I said, baby, here we go.

I said, you're going to have to turn over. Right. And then she huffs and puffs the whole time. She turned it over. But I just. If I get her, I give about three pats on that cheek. She settles right back down. That cheek. She just settles right back down and goes to sleep on the other side.

Yeah.

Cause you don't ever snore, right?

No, I tilt my bed up. That's why we bought that bed, Ron. We got each other. That bed that tilts for Christmas.

Yes.

That was our Christmas present to each other.

But you.

So I said, she lays hers flat. I'm gonna start pulling that thing up for you. You gonna start snowing. I'm gonna.

Oh, my God.

My God.

Let's jump into it, cuz we, you know, we got so much time that we commit to this. Tell us. Tell us what? Love letters. Tell us about your book. Start us on a track where we can talk. Because I. I not only want to promote the book, but I want to hear what somebody. I know a lot about. Yalls life. Y' all let us in. Yalls life Somewhat. And I want to know a lot of that.

What prompted you to write it?

Yeah. How did you get here?

Why you decided to write it?

First of all, the average marriage today is eight years and two months, believe it or not.

And I do believe it.

Yeah. Always say there's a relief in quitting.

Right.

And so we came together and said, what can we do to help marriages?

Because we.

Again, 32 years later, five adult kids, now we got six grandkids. So we've lived a little while we've had ourselves.

You have a beautiful family. You have a beautiful family.

They all look like me. Looks like me. She's much.

We are two.

But I believe that the. Not only the body of Christ, but I believe the world also is in a crisis when it comes to marriages, because, again, they're such a relief to quit.

Yeah.

And people aren't fighting anymore.

That's the answer.

Exactly. And then we think the grass is greener on the other side. Sometimes you need to water the grass in front of you. And I'm grateful that we just recently took four of our six grandkids on a trip, and we were just talking about how we were teenagers, and here we are now hanging out with not only our children, but our grandchildren, taking them on trips and rewarding them for finishing school. And now we're able to create all these memories together. But again, what prompted us is that people are quitting. And again, we want to see people stay married.

We just try to put tools in people's head.

That's all it is.

That's it.

And we feel like we know tools because like you said, we have been married, you know, several times because we left, came back. You know, we went back and forth, and we got married young and didn't know what we were doing. And so we just said, you know, we don't want the church or the world. Well, especially the church, to get used to being. We give up. Especially if God can do what he did in our marriage, absolutely, he can do it in any marriage.

That's what I said.

And so we share that, that there's tips and tools that we can share that help you stay connected, help you stay interested after 32 years of being with the same person, you know, and we just. We have a heart for that. So in our church, we always preach about every quarter of family messages for the families there. And he was preaching one day, and just to make it easy, he came up with the three Ps and the 3Ds to make it easy. And we just kind of took a launch off that. And it's literally a plan. Words, love letters. It's really A through Z. So we have three tips for each letter on things you can do. To make your marriage better.

And you know, Kelly, I think that's the thing that makes marriage suck, because they will all end up sucking if you do not intentionally sow into the marriage.

Intentionally would have kept alive.

People think you just get married and live.

And it lasts.

And it lasts. It does not. If you don't water a plant, it's not going to live.

That's right.

If you don't change the potting soil, change the atmosphere every now and then, it's not going to grow. It's the same way with our bodies. If we don't feed it, it's going to die. If. If we don't give it the vitamins it needs, it's going to be unhealthy. It's the same way with our marriage. We don't intentionally do specific things at specific times. We're not going to have a good marriage.

Absolutely.

People think you just get married and it's supposed to just be rosy all the time. Doesn't happen.

You do have to be intentional. Like people in the staff were talking about yesterday how me and Hope coming in and work together all week. So all week long, I got church hope, but on Monday, my day off, I have hot tub hope.

Oh, my God.

Changes the environment.

I love it.

Hot tub Hope is much different than church Hope.

Sure.

Yes. And. And I like hot tub Hope, too. Yeah, a whole lot. But anyway, talking about just changing it up, being intentional about it.

He has a nickname for me called County Line.

Yep, County Line.

He said great things happen when you get outside the county.

Women are connected to their atmosphere.

Yes.

So, you know, why is a man always trying to take a woman off on a trip? Because if you can disconnect them from all of their responsibilities in that atmosphere, you almost get to talk to a whole different woman. Yes, absolutely.

But then you got these couples who never take a date.

Never go dating.

Proverbs 11:1 says a false balance is an abomination to God. I've learned that sometime Satan can't make you sin, but he can make you busy. And then before you know it, you become a public success and a private failure. That's right, because we talked at breakfast this morning about one of the reasons why we've made it is because I value her. And if you value something, you will invest in it.

That's right.

And one of the things we talk about in the book under Queue is quality time. And I believe that's where a lot of couples, they miss it because they won't unwind, they won't Unplug, you know. And I was like that early. I've been pastoring now for 20 years and I was so gung ho for the Lord. It was all about Jesus. Until she had a family meeting with me and the kids and they said, we miss you. And I'm like, I'm out here trying to build God's kingdom one family at a time because that's our. Been our motto. And they said, well, you losing this family.

Right.

And I had to be like, I, I cried.

That was a call.

Wake up cry. Galatian 4:16 says, have I become your enemy? Cuz I tell you the truth. And they laid it on me. And then from that day, I stopped doing that 8:30 in the morning to 8:30 at night. And I started coming home at 4. Now I come home at 1. You got a good staff. So me and her like yesterday finished around maybe 1231 and we were at Papados.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, you know, we had found that balance because David got a great king, but he sucked as a father.

No, it's true.

As. Even as a husband. And I don't want that testimony.

Yeah. You know, we were talking about how we've been married several different times. Just in conversation. You have. You're married when you have no kids, which we were. Then you're married with little kids, then you're married with teenagers. I'm praying for you if that's you.

Right.

Oh my God. Right. All these interruptions.

Then, then.

Now we're married with. As empty nesters.

Right.

Which is fabulous.

Hallelujah.

The best.

I'm feeling you.

I feel the anointing right now.

Then, then you get married being older.

Right.

And we're talking. When you're married at 18, 19, 20, you don't talk about the day we're going to drive to Walgreens and get our medications or make sure our doctor's appointments are kept.

Exactly.

You know, all those different changes that happen. So there's several different marriages that you have to endure. But also enjoy. And we're really enjoying this season where there was a time where we almost gave up, almost divorced several times. And it's really a miracle that we're sitting here.

Absolutely.

I guess all four of us are sitting here. It's a miracle.

It is.

Truly, it is.

What? Let me ask you a question, you know, and you refer back to the book, if there's anything I ask you, because I could talk to you guys about this for two hours because I got so many thoughts on it. Why do. Do you think it's just a whole list of stuff or there's one or two main reasons that quitting seems to be easier. I told Hope. I mean, me and Hope went to hell and back. Sure, it wasn't bad. I mean, I'm talking about being resurrected out of the ashes.

My God.

But I don't know anybody in my old holiness church. I don't know anybody in my community, and I don't know anybody on either side of my family if they were miserable. Nobody got divorced. I just don't remember that. And you got to understand, I was raised in a very legalistic environment. But if the man and woman, if you could tell, they hated each other. But I don't remember people getting divorced. And it's like, now we have culture of, well, it didn't work.

Yep, yep.

It's almost.

There's no accountability.

Yeah. It's just flipping. I'm like, wait a minute. The collateral damage from this decision, or you are taking into account how long this will affect you, how it would affect you, and there may be some repercussions to other people that will never be undone because they don't know how to get over it. They don't know how to deal with these wounds. And I don't know what, you know, where did the. Where did the casualness come from? And it's not just outside the church, it's in church.

Absolutely.

I think it's just that idea of, I want to be happy.

Yes.

This don't make me happy.

Selfishness.

It is selfishness.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Malachi 2:16. God said he hates divorce. He does not hate us. No, but he hates how we allow the enemy to come in and divide and separate. And we know Mark 3:25 says a house divided won't stand. And so I think people just. They feel like, you know what? I'm going to go try something different. Me and my wife were listening to somebody really popular. I'm not going to say any names, but they made a comment and said, I'm looking at you and marriage is bringing the worst out of you. And because of that comment, she says, I'm getting divorced just because of that comment. What happened to fighting for your marriage? Every marriage has a summer, a winter, a spring, and a fall. You're going to fall out.

That's right.

You're not going to see eye to eye.

Right.

We're in our 20s. If we didn't see eye to eye, we're not going to the movies. We're not going to get Dinner. But in our 50s, if we. We don't see eye to eye, not only we're going to the movies, we're going to go get dinner and still go home and have sex. They're all in that same. Even though we had a disagreement, because we have matured and I think that we're. Thank you, Holy Spirit. To answer your question, there's a spirit of immaturity in the body of Christ where people just feel like, no, I'm done, and off to the next.

And that is immaturity. Selfishness is immaturity. You know, give me that. I want mine. That's my toy. We want to be. We don't understand delayed gratification.

Right.

We've raised our kids. They get anything they want when they want it. They get iPads, they get 900 Disney houses. Their backyards look like Walmart. Whatever they want, they want because they. They. They're what they want, they get instantly. So they don't know how to work for anything. So they don't know how to persevere in tough times. So.

And what I've noticed, too, is now divorce is, you know, and I know everybody has their own story, and they have the reasons.

Sure, sure.

But it's celebrated when someone announces they're divorcing. It's more celebrated.

Well, good for you.

Right. Well, that you looked out for you when you were in your soft season and you're. And here I am. Stayed married, you know, best decision I ever made.

Right.

And I'm looked at with resentment. I'm looked at as I'm not strong. I look at it as that I'm weak, that I stayed in a marriage where if I were to walk away, I'm applauded. And then I've got a group of women that I really feel they have a root of resentment. And if you hear what they say and what they talk about, there's resentment in the root of what they're saying. But they connect with other people that fail. Same thing, have the same story and that.

Then they just get bitter together.

Right. It's a shared resentment.

Yeah.

And you know what? Now it's like, I want a man, but he needs to be xyz and this.

Oh, my gosh, I'm so sick of hearing that.

Right. He has to be this and that and bring this to the table. And I'm like, ma', am, you're 50. You know, I could see if you're 20 or 4, but you could have demands. But at 50, you know, it's hard to Get.

You know, you ain't all that in a bag of chips either.

Right, Right. And so I'm just watching the world shift. Not just in the world, but in the church. It's an applauded failure. And it's sad because folks like us were questioned, is it real? Are we organic? Is this a real relationship? Did we just settle?

Right.

And no. God's kept us together. It is the Holy Spirit.

Absolutely.

And it's to the glory of God that we are a testament of getting through hard times, difficult times, and only God did it. And that's the testimony that God did this restorative process in us and kept us together for such a marriage is.

He said it's a reflection of Christ in the church.

Exactly.

That's right.

Constant forgiveness. Constant mercy. Death to yourself. Death to yourself. Death to what you want. And again, mercy. You know, we always say, love, keep us together. No, it's mercy.

Mercy.

Giving that person what they don't deserve.

Yeah.

We all have had to do that in any marriage. Had to do that every day. Yeah.

You know, I want, you know, me and this is real raw and relevant. So me and Hope have some real talk here. Me and you can be real raw. Some of our conversations, we can be really raw. So I don't know if we need to go there, but.

I.

We talked about some brothers that, you know, don't want to be married. We know in ministry, which means probably some carousing and stuff going on because they're not going to never talk to a woman again. That's just not going to happen. And I.

Right.

I don't know, Rich. I want somebody to care about me.

I don't wanna just sex.

I don't wanna sex or hit it or play or hook up.

Sure.

I wanna know somebody misses me. I want to know if I'm not there, there's a deficiency. I like a love note posted. I love a text. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about?

Absolutely.

I don't wanna go through all that again. I'll date some women or something. I don't want that part. I want to know that I am. I want somebody that finishes my sentence. That's right.

That's right.

I want somebody that's two thoughts ahead of me.

That's right.

She knows what I'm. I want somebody to look in my eyes and say, okay, he's had it. I gotta get him out of here.

And everybody think, Ron. But I think everybody really does want that. But they don't want to put the.

Work in because that's a hard.

That's a hard.

Because you don't.

You don't get there easily.

You don't get that at year one, five or ten.

No, you don't. So good.

No, that is.

You are becoming one.

That's right.

And that. It's a lifelong process of failures and victories and good times and bad times and kids.

It's like how you've had to train me.

Yes.

Like Hope. Hope does it. She'll be sitting there watching tv. She'll go, I'm cold.

Oh, God.

Here we go. Yeah.

And I'll find. I'll get a. I'll go get a blanket and I'll come back on and turn the fireplace on.

Right.

Thirsty. Whoa. And I'll sit there like, Jesus. She has got me trained. She just says something and I get up and go, move. And I go do it. And I'm like, that's what you're talking about. That's what it takes to get me to that.

That's right. But it does take time.

It takes time.

I think people want it, but they want it instantly. Like I was saying before, and we.

Talk about in the book under the Bees, we talk about how you got to believe in each other.

Yeah.

You got to believe, build and bend. Yeah, you were bending. You're like, you know what? She needs a cover, Right. She needs some water.

Yep.

And same here. There are certain things that she needs.

She needs to shop.

Here's the credit card.

Right.

Thank you. That was last week.

She'll bend that credit card.

Right.

Oh, Lord Jesus.

Then the credit card. That is good. But no, we talk about that, how you have. And I believe that we talked about it earlier about selfish. And a lot of people don't want to bend. But if you want to have longevity in your marriage, you have to be willing to bend. And that's why we made it, because we've made a decision. Because there was a time I didn't do it.

We both do it.

We both have to do it. Not just one.

No bold echoes. That's a two way street.

And we build each other. It's when those losses happen, the hard times, we build each other up. And I think that looking back at our relationship, we became stronger as a couple because we kept on hitting roadblocks. It was just time of tribulation. I mean, we were struggling financially and we were poor and we were both working hard with the working poor, which is why I still have a heart for the working poor.

Tithing giving offering at the time. It still Broke.

Right. Right.

Having forced yard sales to feed kids.

We did too.

God still provided we.

Right there.

Way out of. No way. See, we have those stories where we didn't have anything. And I know you hope like we're really friends. Like we had nothing. We're not making it up. We had nothing. But God still provided.

He did.

But we learned to encourage each other with the word of God and build each other up. Yeah.

We didn't hide each.

No.

We built each other. We could make it. He would always tell me, it's not gonna be like this. I'll never forget one of our worst days. He picked me up from work in our shared car. I had all five kids in the back.

They were little.

We pulled up to Jack in the Box for dinner. The car declined.

Yeah.

And then our car broke down in the drive through.

In the drive through.

And I just remember tears falling. Cause we didn't have money to get the car fixed.

Yeah.

We couldn't get. There was no. We weren't. We just weren't eating.

And thank God you worked for the police department, so you were able to AAA take the car out of the drive through.

Someone I knew. Yeah.

That was all time low. We got declined. And the car. That was four.

And he looked at me and goes, baby, it won't always be like this.

We had to get in this tow truck. Thank God we only were two miles from the house.

Y'.

All.

It was just. It was bad.

But you persevere and we build.

And guess what?

We still tell each other those stories.

Yeah.

Because it's like, look what God did.

I love that.

Even another story.

Can I tell one? I got one. I share this every once in a while. I don't know if I shared it here at San Jose. Since I've been here, we. You know when people tell you they didn't have nothing and may not mean they didn't have a lot. We didn't have anything. We started off off missionary money. We asked people from churches to help us while we start a church. Some. It may come in, it may not.

Right.

And that's how we lived.

Got it.

And wow. We were living. You ain't going to believe. I'm going to tell you. We were living in the ghetto. Okay. I mean. I mean, walk out. Let me look out here before hope goes walks out. See if anybody got a gun. We lived in that. It was a house that we paid $150 a month.

It was the Mill Hill.

The Mill Hills in South Carolina have been vacated. So it's been taken over by drugs and everything else. We lived in that. And, you know, she came from a family that did pretty well, so they weren't crazy about life with Ron so far. And long and short of it. We had an oil heater in this old house. It was raggedy as all ghetto, and the oil heater was messed up. And the landlord, because I paid him 150amonth, he would not fix it. He's like, look, I don't make enough money off you to go fix it. So South Carolina, the winters get cold. And I remember we went through the whole winter with no heat. And we were standing at the door, hurry up. But when you got to the other side of the door, the temperature was the same. We didn't have any heat in the house, and it was like January. And I remember we got into bed and we laid about 10 blankets on us. And I looked over at Hope, and we're just sitting there shaking in the bed, and I just saw one tear just come down the side of her.

Face, and then it turned to ice.

But let me tell you what she never did in Hope's worst days, and she's had some brokenness she's had to deal with and come through. She never tore me down. My God, now I'm going to tell you, that made me feel like crap. That made me feel almost worthless. When I saw that and I went out, I jumped up mad. I walked outside in my pajamas, freezing cold that night, and I pointed my finger at that house and I said, you can't hold me.

Wow.

And that was the start of the turnaround. I said, you can't. And so one thing I always did, Hope, like you said, it ain't always gonna be like this. I always tried to, you know, we're going somewhere, stay the course.

And I think the thing with these marriages, you can't just say, it's always gonna be like this, and get settled in it and say, well, I'm just gonna leave because this is better. No, you built each other up.

I think now we women today, if they had somebody that was in a cold room or, you know, the car's declining with five kids, they'd be like, I'm out of here.

You're sorry, you're sorry. You're not a bad.

And we were doing the best we could, like y'.

All, that never happened. She never did that to me. And, I mean, we live hard, but the whole time there was this, we're going to stick this thing out together, because together we are Better than we would be separate.

That's right.

In every marriage, there's going to be hard elements. I mean, you leave this one, the next one's going to bring some type of dimm, friendly, hard element. Pick one that you love and go through it together.

Amen.

I'd always rather struggle with him.

Me too. I'd rather struggle with Ronald and as.

I was calling him, and he's Ronaldo, Reginaldo.

But, you know, it's amazing it hadn't got harder. It's gotten better and better. It's gotten better. Now. I like the cue quality time, because me and Hope are very intentional. We start our day. I give my time to the Lord. Actually, a little later in the day. My first time is whoever gets up first goes and makes the coffee. You'll see it. Because you're going to spend some time with us at our house. When we go home today, we have two chairs that face each other, and we go in there with our coffee. She puts her feet in my lap. I put a cover over her feet, and we sit there and look each other straight in the eyes and for about 45 minutes. What do you want today? What can I do for you? And that's the way we start every day with that kind of intentionality. How can I help you today? What's your schedule? Can I do any of it for you? And here, again, that intentionality it does here, another thing we do, it resets.

You and gets you on the same page.

Is not taking anything for granted. Gratitude is huge.

Right?

That's.

I'm a thank you, guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a thank you. She ordered doordash the other day. She didn't cook. She ordered. We got to eat. I said, babe, thank you. That was awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she. And I heard to tell somebody else.

Later, and I said, thank you for your credit card that paid for it.

Yeah. But she was telling somebody else who was in a marriage struggle. She said, my husband just thanked me for doordash.

Right, Right.

Do y' all tell each other thank you? Do y' all ever. Are y'. All. You know, the word says it's the little foxes that smell. I've never had anybody bust him off. I'm divorcing him. He won't take me on a Caribbean cruise. Right. I have had him say this. He never touches me. Yes. We don't talk.

Right.

We used to hold hands. It's always. It's the little stuff. It's the little stuff that compounds until it becomes.

Exactly. Exactly.

Tell me some Other place. What you got?

I love this in K. It says knowledge teacher, Teach Me Something night. Here's an activity. Have a Teach Me Something night. Each partner chooses a skill, recipe, or a piece of knowledge to share with the other. Something you're good at or passionate about. Take turns teaching and learning from each other. Why it inspires growth. I love this, Kelly. Learning together keeps the relationship dynamic and engaging, and then how it builds connection. Sharing knowledge fosters mutual respect and creates fun and memorable experiences.

That's right. And that's just from knowledge. When we first got married, I didn't know I was marrying the pros. The post season, the draft, NFL college. I had no idea that he had that passion like that. And I remember I would hide the pliers. Remember, y' all had pliers to turn the channel?

Yeah.

If the knob broke.

Yeah. We would not have this now, but the knob broke. We had pliers.

I would hide the pliers, rabbit ears with tinfoil on them and all that I'm with.

I hit the pliers because I knew I would lose him all day Saturday for college and all day Sunday for football. So I had to. I hated football because I felt like I lost him. Right. One day I sat down, I said, teach me. Because I work with all sisters and no dad in the home. So I'm like, teach me football. And he spent a whole weekend with me, and I learned first down, second down. I learned the position. I learned on purpose because I'm like, what is this that he loves so much?

The purpose of the chains and all that.

He don't love that. He likes how they hit each other. Kelly.

Well, the game's phenomenal now. To this day, I'm probably one of the biggest football fans.

Absolutely.

Because I. And I. And I learned to appreciate what he enjoyed about it instead of fighting with it. And I had.

You joined it.

I joined it on purpose. Something I was not interested in, didn't like. Now I've acclimated, and I love it.

To come into his world.

You've been.

You send them to his work.

Exactly. Just like she wanted to go to a concert last year, a group called Duran Duran.

Oh, my.

She is whiter than me.

Exactly.

She is whiter than. I said.

I said, baby, you really gonna have me take you?

No.

Because when I met her as a teenager, she had their pictures all on the wall. I'm like, who are these guys? I came from the Tupac, you know, Biggie Smalls, you know, not Duran Duran. I'm like, you run DMC and Nwa Here we are. She. She said, I want to go. So I bought the tickets. I said, I'm going to do even better. We're going to get a hotel downtown so we can walk to the concert.

Right?

And I got to interject. Was any black people?

No.

There.

There was.

We found a. I don't want to lie on this podcast.

We found one.

There was four, but there was 30 something thousand people there.

Look, there was one.

There was one.

It was.

It was not.

Cuz you can't count her.

Yeah, no. So. So.

But we had such a wonderful time after the concert. We went back to our hotel, had a great time, but again, it goes back to Bendy. I don't value Durand, but. Because I love her.

I love her.

And he watched me sing and dance, and I have videos of him looking at me. Oh, my gosh. And I'm having me a time. And you know me.

I mean, I don't know not one.

Song, but let me tell you something else about the night that was so special. So he takes me to Duran Duran. It was great. I had such a great time. I think I called you. You did? Kelly, you were so wild.

I did.

I said you were the widest girl.

And so afterwards, the next morning, we're having breakfast, and he goes, hey, babe, you know what? One of my ex girlfriends was sitting right behind us. And I said, really? And he goes, yeah, the girl from high school. And I go, really? And he goes. I go, why don't you tell me? And he goes, because that was your night, and I didn't want to take anything away from what you were enjoying. And I thought that was so sweet that he didn't want to even say, oh, yeah, by the way, there's my ex from high school.

Being mindful.

Yes.

Because they were both Duran Duran fans.

And.

Which is.

That's a whole another story because I was dating them at the same time.

Oh, Jesus.

And I had to make a choice, and I made. I made the right choice. Thank God for Jesus.

But I love. So intentional and thoughtful. And I still think about that, babe, because you. You said, I didn't want to take anything from you.

I love that the principles are the same. We're such similar creatures. Because it's the same principles that are active. Let me. I'm a college guy now. I have adopted the 49ers right here.

Gotcha.

But I'm, you know, Southeast College is king.

Oh, absolutely.

So I went all the South Carolina games. We always win. I had a group of about five guys and we went, we tailgated. We did it up, right? So I remember being there with all those guys, and all those guys are sitting there talking about how much their wives hate football. You know, blah, blah, blah. I was like, okay, watch this. I took my phone. Hey, babe, just checking up on you. How you doing? She said, I'm sitting there watching the game.

Yeah.

Now look, them guys. I said, that's how you marry the perfect.

Come on. I love it.

I said that. But now, let me tell you something else. My husband hates shopping. My husband hates shopping. I just have to go shopping by. I actually started it as a bend, and it ain't a bend no more. I love getting me a coffee. I love to see her try on clothes.

Oh, yeah, Ron, it's not about the shopping. You want to go into the dressing room?

She does something sometimes. The lady said, the dressing room's large. You can go in. And I say, may I? Yeah. Is it all right? But I love. That's good. And she comes out. That is fun to me. It started as a bend, right? But having my coffee, carrying her bags and going around and seeing what that does, that's me coming into her world. And even if she don't buy really anything, she loves that environment. Yeah, she loves that environment. And so, you know, I'm calling, she's watching a football game. I'm walking around behind her, seeing her try on clothes. It's the bend. But what does it say? I care about what you care about.

That's right.

I think in marriages, y'. All. To sum it up, we're almost. We gotta shut it down. But like I said earlier, we think it's supposed to happen naturally. And that doesn't. You don't grow naturally. You don't get better naturally. You don't wind up one day and say, wow, I'm way uphill. No, you had to push to get uphill.

That's right.

Nothing happens naturally. I think in marriage that if. To sum up this book. To sum up what we're saying is it's going to be work.

Yeah.

Yep. Absolutely.

It will be work. James 2:20 to make it better.

James 2:20 says, faith without works, it's dead. You got to put that work in working. The grace. Greek, of course, means action. So you just can't sit around being idle.

No.

My mom always said, what you put in your wife is what's going to come out of her. She told me that at 19, didn't register until I got probably about 25.

Right.

And I realized, you know what? I Got to start sewing, investing, Right? And now look what I've got back.

God put Adam and Eve in a garden.

Yeah.

And said, tend it. And this is the way I teach it. That word tend means cultivate. Okay? You have a marriage. Cultivate what you want.

Cultivate.

What do you want?

Come on, cultivate.

And get in there and work.

Cultivate, work. It don't just happen.

Y' all out there listening. You marriages who are struggling, this is. This is teaching you to cultivate. You say, well, why? Oh, well, it should just be more natural than that. Or, why is it so hard? Because you aren't cultivating, because you're not doing anything. You're spending more time on the golf course. You're spending more time on the Internet. You are not talking. You are not bending. You are not appreciating. You are not affirming. You are not going the extra mile. So I'm so thankful you wrote the book. I mean, this is just a handbook. It's a tool for marriages.

They get it.

One more. Wait a minute. Closing out one more letter. Give us one more letter. One part. In here, you say, this, I think, is one of the most important parts. So out of the A to Z, tell us one more letter and a principle you got with it.

I'm going to say affirm. It's so important to get the book starting right out. Right out. Because we don't do it. We work together. I've seen couples treat their bosses kinder than their spouses.

My God.

And affirming is. You did a good job. I appreciate you. You look nice today. You're gonna make it just saying those kind words to each other.

No, we don't do that. We expect them to do certain things instead of affirming it.

Affirming it. Yeah. And I think it's so important that we do that as a couple. And I know he and I do it, not just everybody, you know, in ministry, because he's my pastor, but he'll let me know you did a good job. Or he might say, you're doing awesome. I see more in you. That's another part of affirmation, too, is you're good, but I see more in you. I'm gonna pull more out of you and then letting you know I'm proud of you. I told him yesterday, you take such good care of not just me, but the staff, the family. You take such good care of you. I just wanna make sure you're happy. And I know he's happy, but I just wanna make sure. But That's. That's saying, I see your hard work. I see your dedication. I appreciate what you do. I don't just expect it.

Right.

I think wives just expect it. But to have a good man that's hardworking, that loves you, is able to share himself with so many people is a blessing.

And then you'll have a wife say, well, he don't do it well. Find something. Find one thing.

Find one thing.

Your hair looks good today.

Yes.

I like your tennis shoes. They look great on you today. Anything?

I think Reg would agree with, with me, Kelly and Hope. We. We live in an arena of public opinion, and I have threads all Sunday of people making all kind of comments about what they like, what they don't like. You're a fraud. This was a great word, you know, whatever, right? I really don't care about that.

Sure.

But, man, I care about her opinion.

Come on. Amen.

I'm telling you, I care about what she think. So I can get a thousand. Pastor, I enjoyed that message and thank you for that. I mean, that feels good. But when I walk back in the green room and somebody who's been listening to me preach since I was 19.

That's right.

Say, baby, that word, man, I want to pull that s out on my case because I care about her opinion.

That's right. Absolutely.

And I saw this thing that's going viral on Instagram. Maybe you've seen it. Have you seen. It was actually an interracial marriage. And I loved it that it was an interracial marriage because it spoke something even that needed to be more spoken. But it was the guy who was sitting back at a table, and I mean, they were facing losing everything. He was going through bills. His company had just shut down, laid him off this, that, and other. And you could tell, you know, they were a check, week to week check type family. You could just tell and look at it. And he was kind of down on himself. And she stood up off that couch, she said, you're the reason I'm here. You're the reason I have a roof over my head. You're the reason my child has formula. You're the reason. And that dude.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

I mean, and then I looked at the thread. This woman was not a gorgeous woman. I mean, she's just. She's just a housewife.

Got it. Got it.

But to know what men want, that thread. This dude is the richest dude on the planet.

Wow.

This dude has already won everything. See, what matters to guys, it ain't bombshells, hooking up and this and that other. When she said that to him, every guy on there responded. They like, man, give me just a.

Little bit of that, you know.

Firm, you know, how to promote.

How can they get the book?

You can go to our church website, Kingdom Church. Once you go on there, it's the first thing you'll see. Just hit that. It's off Amazon. You can get it and it'll be to you in a couple days. And we're really, really thankful that we're able to share.

I'm so grateful for your life, for your friendship, for your ministry, for your perseverance, and for your book.

So go get this book.

We have today immense respect for these guys. And they have the journey and the walk to have something to say. They have authority in this area because they've walked it out.

Amen.

And so I know just, just some stuff I've heard right here, you know, chapter one will change your life.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you guys need to check this out, huh?

Hope so glad that you were here today. Listen, if you have not joined the inner circle, I would love for you to come. So many people are struggling just to, you know, in marriage. They're struggling in their mind, they're struggling in their confidence, they're struggling in their spiritual walk. And not that I have all the answers, but I have been through some things and I want to give you what God's given me. So if you want somebody in your corner, if you want a coach, if you want somebody that will give you accountability, we meet twice a month. So go to hopesintercircle.com and join today. Your first month is free and you get my brand new book for free. So I would love to have you. Ron, tell them about AI Ron Carpenter.

AI app Ask me anything. It is not a computer speaking. It is a computer that has been trained when you ask a question, to pull from everything I've said the last 35 years and from my archive, compile your answer. 20, 27,000 hours of interaction last month. I would love for y' all to have this doesn't cost anything. Great discipleship tool. One person wrote me last week, excuse me, called in last week, said they talked it out three and a half hours, right?

I'm like, okay, I don't know.

So many pastors we've been hearing, you know, we've been hearing so many pastors say, you know, Pastor Ron, give me a message on tithing and it pulls it right out. Pastor Ron, tell me how to count council this area and it I'm doing.

A Bible study next week. Help me out. What can I say to men? And it's all there. And all you got to do is ask it a question. It's really pretty great. So I'd love for you guys to download. All you gotta do is Download the AppEnter AI Download the app. But anyway, we love you for being.

Here with us today. It's been Ron and Hope unfiltered, real, raw and relevant.

See you guys soon.