The Digital Disconnect: Why Social Media Hurts Relationships | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered. He did it again. This joker. I'm telling you. So predictable.

Good Morning, America.

I'm Ron Burgundy.

Ron, not Ron Burgundy.

Real raw and relevant. And he does the same thing every time. So what are we talking about today?

Talking about the effects of social media on dating, which is kind of funny because me and you haven't dated since 1990.

That's a very broad topic, and we.

Ain'T gonna go all in. I'm not trying to do a scientific data approach on the negative effects of social media. Some stuff we've seen. Because the fact is, number one, we don't. I don't think we look nor act our age. I'm just going to be honest with you. And we're surrounded. We are our age, but we're surrounded by youth. We did not date like that, for whatever reason. Our kids are young adults.

Our whole staff.

Our whole staff is young adults. And both of our campuses are filling up with young adults. That's our fastest growing.

I think it's because of your drip.

It's a hard drip. It's a hard one.

It's undeniable.

That's why I tried to follow me with a mop, you know? And I see them putting their hands over their head over there.

Oh, my God. Follow you with a mop.

But anyway, I wanted to pull this topic up because I just want no more. And I wanted to laugh, but I don't want to. I don't want to come across as experts on it, because, really, well, we're not. And all we know is the craziness we hear from our staff and people telling us the way things are rolling. So here's what I think I want to do to be useful, you know, Anybody that's got a few years in the rearview mirror like we do, they think the old way of doing things, always the best, you know? And people who love the big block Chevy V8s don't like electric cars, you know? And people who like the old way of dating don't like the apps and this and that and the other. And the fact is, you know, the EV cars are great. Me and you have two of them. And I got gasoline cars. I mean, so things can evolve over time. But I do believe we have to be careful that in a modern technological age, there's some things that are very valuable that get lost.

Yeah, very valuable.

Very valuable. One of the things I want to talk about, maybe not social media, but just the Internet, and the Internet apps And the dating apps. But also social media plays a part in it, too. Some of the negative effects I think that it has is when you can no longer relate face to face to face. I think that is one of.

You don't know how to talk. You don't know how to communicate.

We get with a lot of people. Me and you are communicators. We've been communicating our whole life. I think in a lot of ways. I want to toot your horn. You are extremely gifted outside of your training. You could just go in a room and light it up. That was always one of the things that I thought was so amazing about you. But it's. It's the way you agree.

That's how I got you.

It's the way you agree. Yeah. You did a good job on me as well. I'm a little more. What'd you call me? Extroverted introvert. I don't even know what that means.

You are.

What does that mean?

You're good with people, but you don't want to be around people long. Is that. That's just the blunt way. No, they.

No, no. I'm gonna get feedback on that. Let me tell you something.

You get drunk.

I like to be around people, But I have. I have. I can't. Once I'm done, I can't fake it.

No, you cannot.

I can't fake it.

You get almost rude.

So here's my thing. Here's her. Here's Ms. Socialite. Okay. I go somewhere. I've been traveling all day. I go to the hotel. I got two or three hours.

I've been traveling.

I gotta pray.

I went to the hotel.

I gotta study. Yeah, but you ain't gotta preach that night. Yeah, I've got. I'm praying. I gotta study. I'm gonna take a quick shower. If I have time, I'll run down to the gym, come back, grab a salad right quick or something to eat. Go. I'm going to be in a two or three hour church service, depending on what kind of conference it is afterwards. They got a whole host of people they want me to meet in the green room. So I'm sitting back there and it's.

Midnight and you're tired, okay.

And you start squeezing my leg under the table because you're being rude. But I tell you, I lean over and say, all right, I'm done. It ain't that I'm being rude. It's that I don't have anything else.

I come to your aid and your rescue because I usually put it on me. I'll say, I'm tired, guys, so we're gonna go.

You do. But that's what I do. I just lean over to you. What? I always say I'm done. I lean over to Hope and I just. That's her cue to let me know, get me out of there. Why? Because once my tank is empty, I can't. I don't have the ability to sit there and look like I'm still interested.

Well, you two just your natural giftings. You're better one on one. You like a smaller group.

I do.

You like to pour deep into a smaller group.

They give you. The churches, give you birthday parties, and 5, 6, 7, 800 women will show up to your birthday party.

It's amazing.

And I looked at you and I said, my worst day ever would by being a walk in a room. And 500 men said, Surprise. That would be like my worst.

That's so weird.

That was surprised. That would be my worst day ever. Give me four or five people that I love.

Yeah.

And that I do life with and let me have an evening together. That's a perfect birthday to me. You walking into a room, balloons going everywhere and loud music.

Amazing.

That's your time. And so I guess in that way, I do enjoy the crowd. But I think in my personal life, I do keep my circle small.

You do.

I keep my circle small. Getting back to my topic, I think that social media has had a negative effect on the ability face to face, to get to know, to have quality conversation, and if I may, to resolve.

Conflict and real conversation. Because I believe what you would say in your room, typing on your phone. Sometimes you're more eloquent doing that than you are face to face. When you've been doing that for weeks and then you finally meet and then you're sitting there like, this is all.

People are bold behind a keyboard, Period. There's people that say things to me behind a computer they would never say to me to my face. That just. That's so much bolder.

Or, you know, you've been doing that for two weeks, and then you do look at them and you're like, wait a minute. That nose filter. You look different than your pictures.

I ain't got to that one yet. I was going to get there in just a minute. I think the ability to do this. I noticed this in my sons, not my daughter. My daughter's just like you. She can walk up to wood and start talking to it and keep talking. Yes. So she has no problem there. But my two sons I notice that most of their. I don't even know if you'd call them relationships, whatever it was, dating, meeting, going out, whatever. They got to a place where about 90% of them will be initiated electronically. And I would also notice that in these relationships, if it ever had one hiccup, it was usually over.

Yeah. No ability to work.

No ability to work. To go face to face and sit down.

But you know why? Because there's so many options. They're like, oh, let me just go look at the other. Hundreds of thousands of.

I think my boy's going to get me our second son, Chaz. I think that was a hindrance to him. Chaz is really good looking. I don't care if he is my kid. He's pretty. He's a good looking young man. And I think kids are pretty. I think. I know they are. But I was just talking about him in particular because he had a different. You know, he waited a lot longer, he did, to get married than our other two. And one of the reasons I think he waited is because it took Ariana, who's an amazing girl, who they're getting married, to take all the other options off the table. Because I do think he. One of his problems was there's girls everywhere, you know, and he couldn't, you know, and I would even have to.

He's our one. He's our one, though, who can't make a decision between a blue shirt and a black shirt.

Yeah, he's.

I'm like, he's like, mom, should I get the blue one or something? And I'm like, buy both of them.

He's an overthinker.

They're $10 and.

But I do remember him talking about, you know, kind of with all the girls out there, how in the world do you ever know if you get the right one?

Right?

We gotta understand without the Internet, we never approached things with all the girls out there.

No, we didn't. You know what we did?

You know who was in your community?

You did. And you said, God, Is this the one for me?

Yeah, because I remember, you know, I was raised in the Holiness Church and people have been around me. The Holiness Church had the ugliest women you've ever seen, Ron. Yeah, they did.

Ron Carpenter.

But they weren't ugly. Innately. They were ugly because they wouldn't let them put on no makeup, remember?

Or ear bobs.

They wouldn't let them do anything. All the rules were against the women, right? The men would come in, they're going to get in.

So Much trouble.

The men would come in in alligator skin shoes and hair slicked back and three piece suits. And the women, bless their hearts, skirts, they had skirts down and they were wearing the little sneaker tennis shoes, which is actually in style now. But back then people would poke fun at them and they could never cut their hair, so their hair was always straight. Most time pulled up, they couldn't wear makeup. And I would tell people, you've heard me say this for my mama. My mama said, son, you know, I can't wait. You gonna marry one of these nice little girls in the church. And I would tell my mom, I said, mama, I ain't marrying anybody in this church right here. I'm gonna go find me a girl with a face full of makeup. And that's why when I found you, you had eyeshadowed your ears.

That is not true.

And I said, that's the one right there. I know a lot of it had hair out.

I didn't have it to my ears.

That would be. Yeah, you had it out to your ears and about four different colors. You do it going back. But I loved it. I wanted makeup because I'd been place where I didn't get to see a whole lot of it. But we're being funny, but talking about everything was this. Yeah, I went. I saw you at a concert. I went around the college campus to find you. When I found you, I went and got on my knee and introduced myself to you.

You did.

We talked throughout that whole weekend. When you came back to school, lie right. We're not going to go there now. Cuz I had not been saved long.

Okay, you were working out your.

I was working out my salvation. I was saved, but I wasn't sanctified.

Oh my God.

I was saved, but I wasn't sanctified.

Here we go.

I was going to heaven, but I had some issues I was having to work through.

Okay, go ahead.

She asked me did I have a girlfriend. And I told her I didn't. But I did.

But he did.

But I liked what I saw.

But then he said, can I have your phone number? He said, I'm gonna. I was a senior in high school, he was a freshman in college.

You came to my basketball game?

I did. And he said, I was at a visitation weekend and he said, are you coming to Emanuel College next year? I said, are you gonna be here? He said, yes. I said, I am now. And then he asked for my phone.

Number, but that was too forward. That scared me.

That's. I scared you?

That scared me. Oh, and you're so aggressive.

Okay. And then you said, give me your phone number. I'm going to call you in two weeks when I go home and we'll go out. I sat my butt at home.

No, you didn't.

Weekend and waited.

Mama told me you partied that whole week.

I did not. So I sat at home and waited on you and you never called me.

Baby, I didn't have a phone.

What?

We didn't have cell phones.

When you went home, you said you were going to call me.

I didn't get to go home.

Okay, that's another.

We had that phone in the middle of the dorm and all the guys would sit and wait on it.

Yes, I know.

They don't even know what pay phones. They don't even know what pay phones. And then we never had change as it was. So anyway, I had a girlfriend.

Anyway, back to the story.

I had a girlfriend, okay.

But here we are. Look at us.

It was. The thing was the whole from meeting all the way through to marriage, three and a half years dating, engagement, ups, downs, you leaving and going to another school. Me stand. Everything was done through interpersonal relationship, conflict resolution, face to face, learning each other's life rhythms, preparing for marriage, our differences. How are we going to be friends, which is where we are. Like, how are we going to be partners, which we are different. And how are we going to make all these things work? We did it like this.

And you saw my nose. The real nose.

We saw the real nose get go. I saw the real nose.

There were no apps.

There were no apps to sit there and filter it out and this and that and other. And I think that is the real danger because if you ever lose that, I don't know how you can do everything electronically and then get married one day and all of a sudden manage everything face to face.

Oh, that's good.

I don't know how you do that. And like you just can't flip a switch.

That's good.

And me and you had already been managing many problems. We managed the problems of your mom and dad didn't want you to marry me and didn't like me.

They didn't because you didn't call me. Started off on the wrong foot.

I was a preacher and they didn't like that. So they wanted you to marry somebody rich and I didn't have no money and so they didn't want you to get married. And we had to handle that because there was a lot of pressure coming from that. That's not tongue in cheek. They really caused some problems. But all those things, the tears were managed. We broke up one time for like 16 hours, I think, you know, and we met back in the lunchroom and we talked and we managed. We, we. We learned how to work through these things. And I think that's one of the things that helped us stay together 35.

Years now in not just dating, in every area of their life, their business. Yeah.

The second thing is, I think it gives you the ability to initiate a relationship out of deception. If I'm telling you things that aren't true, if I'm. If I'm in any way enhancing pictures, showing you things that aren't true, then I'm not showing you me. I'm sending out a false representation of me. Now, everybody, when they date, sends out their rep a little bit.

Yeah. Face to face a little bit.

I mean, you're wearing your best.

They'll give you the best.

Yeah. You're going to get the best. And that's really not them. That's their representative.

Yeah. That's why you got to date long periods of time, so that that representative can be just.

There's no biblical law against it, but I've never advocated getting married quick. I say you need to date somebody enough to see them in several different seasons.

Yes.

You need to see them when they got some money, you need to see them when they broke. You need to see them when they got stomach flu. You need to see them. Yeah. When they, when they're at peace with everybody. When they're. Yep, you need to see that because then you're getting out of the rep stage and you're saying, this is exactly what I'm getting and that you have the ability to shield that if it's electronic, you have the ability to shield emotions, mood swings, even looks, you know.

So what does that call?

When we talk to some of our staff? It surprised me because I didn't know it was still this much of a thing. You know, the catfish on MTV 15 years ago. Our kids.

That's a long time ago.

Are adults now. And they were watching that as, you know, adolescents and teenagers. So I know that's been a while, but they tell me that is still a big deal.

And that's scary, actually.

Yeah. I mean, and I can't imagine going.

Somewhere, falling in love, getting emotionally involved with somebody, and then meeting them in.

Your life through deep conversations, two and three o' clock in the morning, telling them everything about you.

That's like that freaking love is blind thing. Chaz made us watch. And people Talking pods.

Yeah.

That's like. Same thing. Talking on the Internet.

I fell in love with you in a pod, though.

You would have fell in love with me in a pod.

No, I got to be honest with you. Your looks had a lot to do with me meeting you.

That is so fleshly.

I can't help it. The fact is.

That's a man.

No, that was. I was very attracted to you, and that led me. I wanted to get to know your heart.

Oh, oh, okay.

I wanted to get to know your heart, but the first time I looked at you, I didn't say, man, I bet she has a sweetheart. I didn't know what I said.

Let's don't talk about.

I hadn't been saved long.

Men. It's a man thing.

But did I get to know your heart?

You did.

Okay. But first of all, it was. I thought, she's pretty, but.

But we laugh about it, but that is. That is a little different for guys and girls. I mean, guys are truly stimulated. Thought you were handsome. Yes. Yes. You had that long mullet, that blind mullet, and it was flashing. You're just doing like this in the wind down that basketball court.

I had a perm in itty booty. I had a perm in it.

Your little booty that looked like this. And you had shorts under your shorts.

No, I had boxers. I had boxers on as the only one on the ball team coach will let. Where I wore boxers underneath my shorts.

Yeah, you were. You were very handsome.

But it's a perm in my. You got. I had a perm in my mother. It wasn't just hair.

It looked good.

It was curly. Perm going down it. Okay. So you are attracted.

I think you have. It's called the law of attraction. We talk about this in the marriage conference.

The law of attraction is a powerful law, and you better have it.

Yes.

It can't be the only law. The law of attraction segues to the law of compatibility.

That's right.

And if you're not compatible, you become unattractive very quick.

Right.

And so I think that's what happens. People meet out of the law of attraction, and they carry it too far without ever seeing are we truly compatible. And I think that's what I.

Stuff changes.

Yes.

One on one changes.

One on one.

We found out high and lifted up, start to droop a little bit the older you get. And you got to love their heart.

That's all.

Right, right?

Yep.

Because that heart turns kind of like a. Kind of, like, rectangular.

So bad, man, it changes what's some other things? We still got a little bit of time.

Catfishing. We talked about catfish and we talked about communication.

I think if people that already are in relationships or God forbid, married, I think it's a great way to probably initiate a relationship. You don't need to. I think it's a great way to conceal things.

Yes.

I have seen, I don't do the marriage counsel anymore. I hadn't for a long time. We have, we have some amazing people here that are better than me that do that. But I have seen in my time the pastors that I dealt with. These are pastors. We've got 252 of them in our fellowship and we're responsible for all of them. But the relationships that have gotten started through DMs, even emails and other things electronically. I know one guy that lost a magnificent church because of emails.

Yeah, he never had physical relationship with the woman.

But the emails were inappropriate. But extremely inappropriate. And by the time it got to me, it was too late. I couldn't salvage it. I think it was a very salvageable situation. But too many things had been done before it ever got to me. And I mean this was a great church.

Sad.

But what happened? It was the emotional affair of you bond through conversation. You do, no matter what kind of conversation it is, you start bonding through it. And whereas without those social media platforms and the Internet as a whole, you had to go see somebody to talk to them.

Right.

And that's not the case anymore. Right, that's not the case. So you can have full blown conversations and you can conceal it. So I do think that there is in the mind of people, this is a way for me to have an inappropriate relationship and nobody ever know about it. And I think, I think that's a danger.

It is. And then in a relate just a healthy relationship. We were talking about how social media or how the Internet hinders relationships. Just this. I'm sitting with you at dinner, but I'm doing this.

Okay, so what does that do? Nobody wants to talk about that. Sends a message.

It does that this is more important than you.

Now you know how I am. Tell them what will happen. And you've. This is how we learn. Tell them what will happen. If you pick up your phone and.

We'Re having dinner, he'll get quiet.

I shut down.

He will stop. He'll just stop eating. Put his fork down. Almost like, okay, when you're ready.

Now that's not if, you know, if our daughter calls and says mom, right? So and so's got a fever 102. Can you help me? I mean, of course we're going to answer that, but I'm talking about if you got a choice between me and it and you just decide it. I shut down on that. So you got to watch out that the phone itself does not become the.

Mistress, the actual device, just the addiction to the device.

Yeah, the device. And the doctors have already warned and scientists have already proven that the ding. The notification of a phone is a dopamine shot.

That's right.

That's how, you know, can people be addicted to their phone. People are addicted to the dopamine blast they get when the phone notifies them. They said. And the text is the biggest one. So when people get not even a call, when people get notified of a text, you know, it's like. It's like a drug. It's a feel good drug going right to certain parts of your drain. So what happens?

Your drain.

I want to feel that again.

Certain parts of your drain. You use the word.

What did I say?

You said drain.

Did I create a new word again?

Babe, you. Every podcast, just about, you say a different. A wrong word. Oh, yes, yes. A drain.

See, last week it was my glutes. You're always trying to find something wrong with me. That's my. That's my vocabulary.

I just think it's funny. Well, you make me.

I don't know what I'm saying now. What's I saying?

The shot of dopamine to your drain.

That. That here again, one of the things, it can create another addiction. You want to keep feeling that feeling. So keep looking, keep looking, keep looking. And I think there's some people that may have that kind of addiction and don't even realize.

True, that's true.

I mean, they're not trying. Yeah. There's some people I've been with and I've sitting there said, do they have any idea, right. In the last 10 minutes how many times they picked up their phone?

Yeah. So we have been in restaurants with people who never had a conversation with.

Us the whole time.

I mean, at a literal dinner with them. And they never had a conversation with us because they were looking at their phone the whole time. Me and you just had to have a conversation.

And so that is just straight up not healthy.

Right.

It's just not. And so we've done named about four or five areas now where we think it's had a negative effect. I think the first one would. Would be, though I go back to number one. Everybody needs to be able to manage a relationship in person, because that's what a relationship is. There's. I'm not Mr. Relationship Guru, but my whole thing is, if I know something's wrong with me and you, I want to find hope and I want to get in a room.

You're not going to text me, hey, no, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.

No, I said, baby, where are you? I want to talk to you, and I'm coming to where you are. I'm going to grab your hand, I want to sit down, and I want to fix it. Why? Because I value you.

We never even fix any problems on the phone.

No.

We don't text and say, you know, we went through this. I'm sorry, and let me say no, never.

I want to look in your eyes and tell you I should not have said that, and I was wrong, and I'm asking you to forgive me. I want to see that dart come out of your heart, and I can see it in your eyes, because we're gracious and we're very merciful with each other. But the fact is, you know, I don't want to miss. I don't want to fight over a phone, but I also don't want to make up over a phone because you get. You miss all the things that you get out of making. You miss the look, you miss the hug, you miss the kind words. You miss the emotional connection. You miss all those things. And so I do know. I told him one time, and Chaz is going to get me. He's very private. One time, Chaz broke up with a girl in a dm. I don't think he really broke up as a girl. He dated a few times. She was a lot more interested than he was. He just wasn't interested. And Chaz is like, the best guy. Yeah. He don't want to hurt nobody's feelings.

That's probably why he did it.

Yeah.

Because he's just.

He's like the best guy. He don't want to confront anybody in any negative situation. He's just not built that way. My oldest son, totally different. But Chaz, you know, he's that way. So I went and talked to him about it. I said, what's up with you? So he said, well, we aren't going to be seeing each other anymore. He said, I called that off. I said, really? I said, when did you do that? He said, I DM'd her. I said, chaz, I know.

And we were like, chaz, teach you to do that.

You can't be breaking up with girls.

You know what he said? He said she wasn't that special. He said she wasn't that special. To meet her in person, he said I really didn't care nothing about her.

He is a great guy, but he is kind of matter of fact like that. He is kind of matter of fact, but the whole thing like that. To me, you know, we're in a different generation.

We are.

To me that's disrespectful. To me it's just at least have the.

But you and I do have to have the grace, Ron, that we were not brought up with devices. No, we weren't. This is, this is this generation's.

And it's all we know.

All they know. They. I mean our grandkids, our littles that are three, four and five grandkids, they have their own devices, their own. I mean they know how to work these things.

Oh, they can whiz all over those. Yeah.

So this is all they know. So we do have to have some.

Grace and you have to watch that out because when we go off and do things as a family for all golf and have a family meal, all five of our grandkids are asking for our phone.

Yeah, they are.

And so the adults are talking and all the kids, they're not interacting. That's not healthy. It's not. That's not healthy. Listen, I had. I didn't have a curfew with my mom and dad. You know, my mom, dad had a lot of faith in me that they shouldn't have had, but I had a curfew with a phone. Seemed like 9:30. Nine, 9:30 or somewhere. We couldn't call our girlfriends no more after that time. And they laid up in their room two o' clock in the morning on school night now. Texting. And I'm just like, man, what a different, different world. Because my dad would come around that corner, you know. Son, you got five minutes.

Get off the phone.

Yeah, you got five minutes. And if you didn't hang it up, he'd hang it up. And see, people would never understand that we have boundaries. Yes, it's boundaries. And nothing is good without boundaries.

And this right here, everything is at your fingertips. There are no boundaries here. That cannot be good for any of us.

What did Ezekiel say? 47. The river flows through the banks and on the banks are the trees, and the leaves on the trees are for the healing of the nations. And he said, but the swamp, everything in the swamp was dead. What is the difference between a swamp and a river? A river has boundaries.

Yep. A swamp does not.

And the river feeds the banks. Everything's growing on the banks. The fruitfulness of your life grows on the boundaries.

Ooh, Brian, say it again.

The fruitfulness of your life doesn't grow in the water. It grows on the boundaries.

On the boundaries.

And then when you go to the swamp, the reason the swamp is full of death is because it has no boundary in which to flow. Stagnant. So the fact that they came in and said, you can talk till 9:30, something about that was healthy for me.

It was.

And so when I, you know, when I walk around now and I see, you know, it's Christmas night and everybody's standing up late watching movies, and they're one o' clock in the morning texting their boyfriend. That blows my mind. Yeah, it just blows my mind because it's so different from the culture that I was raised in. And is theirs all bad? No, but I don't think ours was all bad either. And so anyway, I think we've told. Talked enough about that.

Well, one last thing. Social media, the death of relationships. Comparison. Comparison.

That's bad.

It's terrible.

I like what Steve Furtick said. I've never heard it put like he put it. Steve Furtick said, the problem with social media is you're judging your reality by everybody else's highlight reel. Nobody really puts their reality.

I know, but do you have enough wherewithal within yourself to say, I'm judging my reality. But they're wonderful. I'm not. But you know that what they're putting out is not real.

But he's so right. For instance, on our two services on Sunday, they come and ask me after service, which one you want to show?

Which one do you think?

Which one do you show? And I'm like, don't do the first one. It sucked. So nobody, nobody, nobody takes the bad clip.

Right.

And puts it out there. Exactly right. But is that reality? No, the reality was I had one that sucked. That's the reality. But nobody puts that out there. So you're looking at everybody else's life and saying, man, their life must be great. What the crap am I doing wrong? That's not their life. That's the highlight reel. I remember John Maxwell telling us that people wanted to rent out his jet for influencers to come.

Ron.

And sit on it.

Are you serious?

To come and sit on it.

To act like they had a jet. Wow.

So you got all these people saying, man, she's 26 and got a jet. No, she don't have A jet.

She rented it.

She rented out the cockpit to take.

A jet to make it look like she had a jet.

Exactly right. And that is how image driven everything is. And the fact is, if you sold them a jet, okay, when they meet you and you drive up in a Toyota, how do you explain that? Ain't nothing wrong with a Toyota, but it's a chasm between that and a.

Jet of a little nose.

Yeah. You walk out with a beak.

Yeah, a beak.

How are you going to sell them that? So I'm sitting there saying, I don't know what these people are thinking while they're sitting there and projecting all this. That is not true. Because there is going to come a reckoning.

Yeah, it's true.

You can't. You can't date forever.

So what would you say to the Christians listening, though? There's a general. I mean, we do things as a Christian, that the world, we're different. We're supposed to do life different. So the Christian young people, people dating, trying to find their soulmate, the one God has for them, what's the difference? How does a Christian, you have pursue that?

You have to move into the arena of initiating relationships with other people that you're looking for a life mate in absolute truth. Absolute truth. Nothing can be in darkness. Me and you have learned that the hard way. All these things that had traumatized you through life that you were ashamed of, you never told me about. Well, there's a day that stuff just falls apart. And so me and you learned in our counseling the do away with the unfruitful works of darkness. Nothing can be in the dark. You know, if it's just a friend, if it's just an acquaintance, if it's somebody you work with, they don't have to know everything. But when you're looking at somebody as a life mate, the fact is, I think the whole, whenever there's any lie or any deception, you have already begun building on a faulty foundation.

Yeah. I just think the basis, though, like I said when I asked the question, as a Christian, as Kingdom people, we do life different than the world does. So we don't need to fall into the same patterns and path that the world does to find a mate to date. You know, we got to get on our hands and knees, we got to pray. We got to ask God, bring them to me. Show me. I mean, it could be somebody 3,000 miles away, but God can bring them. God can put you in the path. You don't have to get on Tinder.

I don't know anything. I don't know anything you need to pray about any more than a life mate, right?

It's the most important thing.

I prayed hours and hours about you. When I began, when, when I began in my mind, man, I could marry this girl. When I. When I began to think like that, you, you dog on straight, man. I committed that thing to prayer on a huge level because I didn't want me and you to make a lifelong mistake.

Right?

I wanted to know that it was meant to be and we were right for each other. And I do think with all the things we did wrong, we did some things right.

We did.

We did some things right. But everything being established in truth. You know, this is a big word with this generation, the authentic, true self. You know me. This is not my image. This is not who I'm pretending. This is not a rep. This is Ron. The good, the bad, the ugly. I have some good things about me. I have some things about me not so good. And you need to know it all to be able to make this decision. Whenever any of that is shielded or veiled. I think deception is a relationship killer.

It is.

And it just can't have no part there. So start it right.

It's good, Ron. Thank you guys for being here today. We went a little long, but this was a great topic. Thanks for being here, Ron, and hope unfiltered. Until next time. We love you.

Bless, guys.