 I know that God is a person and he's a person that loves you. He is the ultimate love. He is the one who loves you more than anyone else. And we are here to tell you that today. I'm Tom Hollis. I'm here with Amy Schaefer. This is Hope Today. So glad that you've joined us. We're gonna be talking about love and respect, Amy. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If there was a way for you to greatly influence the state of your relationship with your husband while growing spiritually, would you wanna know about it? And more importantly, would you take action upon that knowledge? What if, I told you in 40 days, you could change how alone you feel, how much peace and joy you have in your life. There is a book about what works. Our guest author today, Nina Rosner, is here with her new book, The Respect Dare. Dare we today talk about respect? Let's go for it. Tom, I'm so excited to dive into the subject, right in the first couple of pages. By the way, I did not want my husband to watch me reading this book, but that's okay, that's another topic. Men are wired to interact with the world around them differently than women. Researchers have found that men's brains are psychologically different than women's brains. So we're approaching this thing of married men. Anyone who's married already knows that much. That's what do we do about it, right? So this respect dare is really going to challenge the women to really obey the commands of the Lord. Well, that's interesting. I'm sure it's gonna challenge the men as well. Speaking of challenge, our producers love to challenge us with something we call stump the hosts. So we have been warned that these are hard today. So we really need your help out there and play along with us. We have not seen these questions. Hopefully we know the answers. Here's the first one. What did Barnabas sell so he could give money to the apostles? Land home business. I'm thinking land. I would say land. I think we'll do our best guess here with land. Wait! It says land. There you go. Tom, they assumed we were gonna miss it. Talk about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. You thought we were gonna go. We need a little respect from the sound engineer here. We need confetti. Yeah, where's the confetti? We got it right. There we go. Thank you. All right, we got the first one right. Okay, we got that one right. Land. Okay, second question. Who did Stephen talk about when he said that he could not so much as set his foot on? Moses. He was not able to set his foot into the Promised Land. That's what I think it might be. Could we go with, does that sound good to you? Let's talk about, yeah. Let's go with Moses. Abraham. Ah! Abraham. Son. It's Abraham. Acts chapter seven. So, okay, we're one for one. Not too bad. Let's see what the last one is. What does the preacher of Ecclesiastes say increases sorrow? I'm tempted to say money, but he says money answer with all. That's what he- Well, is it vanity increases sorrow? Let's- Or- Always vanity. Wait. Oh my goodness, what increases sorrow? All you Ecclesiastes experts out there. I'm really having trouble coming up with something. I feel uncomfortable while they're waiting on me trying to think about the answer. You know, it feels like it's in there somewhere. Like- I'm digging. I'm seeing. I know, we're trying- The search engine is- We're trying to host a show and think at the same time. Final answer. They need a final answer. Vanity or money. Money. Let's say money. Okay, I knew it was something like that. All right. Respect for our effort today. Because, I mean, you know, you read the Bible, but it's not like we have the whole Bible memorized, Tom. Well, we should. I know. You're the book of Acts expert. And today I'm gonna be the expert on respect. A long and happy marriage. It sounds like the end of a fairy tale. An illusion that modern times have exposed. And it is, if marriage depends on a constant stream of romantic emotion, or even on copious amounts of time and money. Thank the Lord that none of these are necessary. 2,000 years ago, Paul gave women the key to a successful marriage. And it can be summed up in two words. Are you ready? Unconditional respect. Nina Rosner is our guest, and she's written a book called The Respect Dare. Nina, welcome, I think, to hope today. Yeah, it's a dicey topic for sure. Thanks for having me. As we were kind of talking about this book earlier, you said one of the first things I recommend is you take this book and you throw it against the wall and then you pick it back up and actually apply it to your life. Why does it feel like that? Oh, because we live in a culture that tells us that respect should be earned. Instead of communicating, I'm gonna be a respectful person. And the book itself is 40 dares and they're challenging. It's hard. It's a book on dying to self and learning to honor and respect your husband. And that's a thing we should all do anyway, because we're called to love our enemies. So if we're called to love our enemies, like surely we should be able to love and respect our husband. Right, what do you mean by respect? What is the definition and meaning of respect? Yeah, so we define respect as the awareness and then subsequent behavior, treating someone as precious to God. So that awareness of their preciousness and then the behaviors that follow communicates respect to someone. So what advice did Paul give women to actually find success in marriage? Yeah, there wasn't a lot. It was just wives, respect your husbands. Okay, what does that mean? Yeah, it's challenging because women and men are different. Our brains are different. You mentioned that at the beginning of the show. And the way that women communicate with women is really different than the way that men communicate with men. And so it's kind of like you've got a dog and a cat together and you want them to get along and have friendship and love and all these things. And it's like we speak different languages. And so as a woman, we're more relationally wired, unfortunately, but we wanna acknowledge our differences and celebrate them because God created us this way. You don't hear women ever say, well, why do I have to be the one to have the baby? Like, no, we're wired for this. And so we can accept that and learn to nurture the relationship in the marriage because we're wired that way. I mean, I think you've said a huge piece there is that we're different. Not only are we different personalities and we've had different life experiences. We're different, I'm tempted to say species. And what do we do about that? Again, as the man, we're like, oh yeah, you gotta respect me. But what's that mean from the man's point of view? Well, the good news is that I'm not a man, but I have a lot of men in my life that have been working since I was 13 in a corporation, my dad owned. So I had to move into the world of business at an early age. And that is based on the man's language. Professionalism comes from the language that men speak because they were their first. And so that culture exists. One of the big differences that we have is women are participative communicators. So if Amy and I are having a conversation, she might say, yes, that, like, mm-hmm, and those kinds of things. But those are perceived as interruptions to men and men don't interrupt each other when they're speaking. They take turns and if they do interrupt, it's to take control. It's a power move. So one of the ways that women make men defensive or create an environment where it's really easy for them to be defensive is through our natural participative communication. It's really easy though to go, okay, I'm not gonna do that with him because that doesn't work here. It's not that hard. You just answered a question from last night. My husband said, you interrupt me and I said, I don't. So we're, I'm participating. Before we dive into a couple of these dares that are so great and challenging, what's your personal, you know, marriage story? Yeah, so we got married 33 years ago and I wasn't a Christian except two weeks or two months before we got married. I gave my heart to Christ. We should not get married, but we did. And thank God for that because my husband was really influential in me. He was a Christian. So, and then I thought I was gonna be marrying, you know, like James Dobson or Jesus or somebody. And so it was just a huge disappointment. My husband ended up being this human that, you know, was as flawed as I was. And so we had conflict and I was just so disappointed. And I thought I'd married the wrong person. And then God drug me kicking and screaming through a study on respect about halfway about 12 years ago, I guess. And it took me a minute to figure out how to actually do that. And we've been separated. We've thrown the divorce word at each other. We've had appointments with lawyers, right? But the Lord has really healed us. And I'm one of the few people that will tell a couple that has, you know, filed for divorce. You don't have to do that. There's a way through. Here's the way walk in it. Like he's shown us and there's tons of data from University of Washington, Dr. John Gottman on what actually works and it is not found in the average counseling office. What happens there usually blows the relationship up because you're focused on the conflict of the week instead of what actually works in healing a relationship and building something that God intended to be beautiful. It's really different. So anyway, God did that in our marriage and we now, well, I now help other people do that. My husband's still working full time. And I believe that God can do that for so many marriages that are watching today. You know, we all go through tough seasons and tough times, but God is faithful and there really is a way out and a way to stay committed. This first dare, this is when I threw the book against the wall. Because it's talking about ex- So I got caught on the side of the trip. You just moved Tom right now. Expectations because you have this one line in here, refrain from telling my husband what to do or how to do things like how. Yeah, so we slide into being their moms. Yes, right. And that's one of the most disrespectful things you can do. You wanna be the most respectful person in his life. So all day long, he's treated with respect by the people that work for him or work with him. And then he comes home and hears somebody acting like his mother, bossing him around, take the garbage out. How come you never? And that does not work in a marriage. So we, because we're dealing with kids, we have that pattern of communication and we don't have the awareness that we need to speak to him as if he's an equal heir, as if he's precious to God, because he is. And so when we have that awareness, we can treat him with respect differently than we do in our natural state, which we, you know, the flesh is just not useful in so many ways, as you know. Well, one of your dares is treat him like a man. How do we treat him like a man respectfully? So this is another male and female difference thing. Women love to speak about relationships. Men talk about solving problems in systems, okay? We still say that there's a myth that women talk more than men, that's not true. We both say about 40,000 words a day. But one of the most interesting things that's really different about men is that your physical presence with them is, wow, for them, they love that. That we don't have to talk. Matter of fact, they prefer not to. Whereas women, we get together and we just wanna, you know, what do you feel about that? You know, how are you doing this? And I personally experienced this in the weirdest of ways. Like my husband was out working on our boat one day. There was something wrong with the engine. And I came out and I stood next to him and I said, what you doing? And he goes, I'm working on the boat. Okay, and I just, that's it. I kept my mouth shut. I stood there and he says, hey, can you go get me something, something, some sort of wrench or whatever? And I'm, yeah, sure. And I went and I got it and I brought it back. And I stood out there for like a half hour. And at the end, and he fixed the thing and did whatever he was doing. And at the end of it, he comes over and he gives me this hug and he says, you know, it really meant so much to me that you were with me in this. Like I just loved being with you while I was working on this. And I don't get it, but if that means something to him, like, and when he listens to me, like I wanna be heard and understood and I want him to, you know, be on my side, like be mad at the people I'm upset at too, you know, like I'll hold them down while you slap them kind of that level of whatever it is. Not that I would ever do that. But women need that relational thing. Men need that shoulder to shoulder time without the words. And it's an average, there are some men that wanna talk and stuff, but most of them don't. They just want your presence there. You mentioned the word, I kept my mouth shut. And then one of these dares, you said, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. How do we apply this to respecting our husbands? Yeah, so I learned that one the hard way, but I felt the Lord telling me not to speak unless I had something edifying to say, because, you know, out of the mouth come all these horrible things, right? So it was Christmas and there was wrapping paper on the floor and my kids were little and I'm crawling around on the floor picking up pieces of wrapping paper and I'm furious, I'm crying. And my husband's in the rocking chair reading the newspaper, this is back in the dark ages obviously, that paper, right? And he hears me sniffing and he bends the paper and he's like, are you okay? I'm like, no, and I don't wanna talk about it. And it took a full week for me to sort through what was going on with me. And the Lord, I was working this with God and it was, I couldn't believe I was like, I look back on that and I'm like, really were you that upset over this? But I didn't, I had this expectation that he was going to just see and do, but that's what women do. Men don't jump into doing a thing for you because it communicates. I don't think you can handle this. Let me help. It's degrading. And so women, we need to ask for what we need and I had this realization that if I'd had just asked, he would have helped me because he's a good guy. But I didn't know that at that time. And now that I do, then I can go in that space differently and ask him. I can treat him like the man that he is and ask for what I need. And he's more than willing to give it. Something simple like that, like how crazy is that? But that's how different we are. I love that. And in this book, the scriptures that you pull out for each dare are really powerful. For instance, Philippians 2.14, do everything without complaining and arguing. And I never really took that scripture as like, wow, that could be like a marital scripture. Do everything. Or he hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but a power, love and a sound mind. And we're married to this man. He's making decisions constantly and maybe instead of living in fear of the decisions he's going to make, maybe I'll just trust God, believe God, talk to God about it, and maybe keep my mouth shut on certain things. What are some scriptures that are in this book that really changed the way you thought and acted with your relationship? Yeah, I think Philippians 4.8, whatever you pay attention to, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, admirable, praiseworthy and excellent. If God is going to tell us what to think about and look at, we need to do that. Think, telling us what to think, like that's huge because that then generates our feelings, our thoughts generate our feelings and then that generates behavior. So if, and we can lead with complaint, which never works, it just doesn't. When we bring a complaint to a man, it's like, what do you want me to do with this? It's frustrating, it's stressful. If we're paying attention to what's right and we're bringing life to the relationship, those positives are huge. You have to have 20 positive interactions for every one negative to have a healthy relationship. That's research from Gottman's group. And it's really crazy because in a conflict, you have to have five positives for every one negative. You can't do that if your brain isn't trained to pay attention to what's good, noble, right, pure, admirable, praiseworthy and excellent. We're focused on what's wrong. And so when we change our thinking and we get in alignment with how God wants us to think, it changes your relationship in a huge way. You know, Nina, as I'm hearing this and thinking of so many different conversations Gene and I have had over the years. And I know that just from a guy's perspective that a lot of times my own insecurity perceived lack of respect when it wasn't really given. It wasn't really there so much. I just was too insecure to handle a proper question or a proper maybe challenge even at some point. And I just want to say that I think that that is part of the responsibility on the man to not be insecure and to allow a proper conversation and proper interaction on these things. I'm sure you've crossed this many times. Oh, I totally agree with that. In our classes, we teach people, men and women, the first boundary is have zero tolerance for any kind of emotional communication. Like if you're a little bit irritated, like don't speak. Say, hey, I love you and I want to work through this when we can both be calm. I need to go sort this with God because I'm feeling something. And so instead of sitting in that, we can stop the conversation because that insecurity in men and women shows up as defensiveness and we're not supposed to take offense. So we need to deal with that instead of continuing the conversation to your point. Thank you, Nina, for this incredible book, The Respect Dare. I really am going to keep this book, read it, be challenged by it and apply it to my life. And I believe if our viewers will also that their life and relationship with God and their marriage could change forever. So thanks for being with us today in this awesome book. Thank you for having me. Well, stay with us because when we return in 60 seconds, we're going to dive deeper into what the Bible says about loving and respecting our spouses. We'll be right back. Discover what God's word has to say about healing and deliverance. Bestselling author John Eckhart makes topical Bible study easy with his new book, Scriptures for Faith, Deliverance and Healing. This handy reference is for those who want to have a greater understanding of healing and deliverance to incorporate God's word into their prayers. Eckhart also includes targeted commentary to highlight key scriptures and life application. His spirit-filled perspective will enhance your time in God's word and encourages the spiritual disciplines of memorization and meditation. Request scriptures for faith, deliverance and healing as our thank you gift when you support Cornerstone Television this month. Request your copy today. If you want to strengthen the ministry of CTVN, share your best gift by visiting us online at ctvn.org slash donate or call us at 888-665-4483. Thank you for your partnership. Hope happens here. Well, great conversation that we just had with Nina. They're about respect and about the relationship of men and women and God's kingdom is all about relationships. So let's look at a scripture along that line. It's Ephesians 5 verse 33. To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself. And the wife is to respect her husband. Now, there's been volumes written about this and discussed about this. And I shared just a moment ago that many times my own insecurities perceived a lack of respect when it really wasn't lack of respect. And of course there's times that it is lack of respect. So all of that is part of that relationship. But what's key to me is relationship. God created a world that requires relationship with him. The first and most important relationship was inside the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relating to each other for eternity. And that relationship was passed on to us. And so our first relationship of course is with God. But then there is that, Amy, that same kind of internal relationship between a man and a wife that is so key and also because we are sinners by nature, so much has to die in us in a proper way, put town in us that we can have that relationship in a right and powerful way. Well, to think that any of us are perfect, that we will have the perfect relationship, the perfect marriage, the perfect days. We're never gonna miss it. They're never gonna miss it. You're never, it's fantasy land. It's like, come on, we gotta be real about this. It's two different people, different backgrounds, different childhoods raised differently and maybe in different parts of the world or the United States and you're coming together the way God, by the way, ordained it and commissioned it to be, the two were gonna become one flesh and man, you're gonna rock the earth with the kingdom of God. It doesn't mean it's gonna be flawless. There's not gonna be any hiccups. I mean, sometimes I think I can't live without this man. Sometimes I think I can't live with this man and it's really a sense, it's beautiful. But she said something in this- Did she say beautiful? Beautiful, it's beautiful and brutal at the same time. I mean, you're going through financial discussions and decisions and houses and children. Oh my, just staying on the same page with your children is enough. Oh, I know, I mean, that's one of the key things is that we decided and we weren't always perfect at this and nobody is, is that we were gonna be unified in front of our children as to, we weren't gonna let them play one against the other or have us argue with each other. But there are so many decisions like that within a relationship and I like what Nina said is that a lot of times people don't have the skills. We do come from different backgrounds and not too many of us came from families where there were perfect skills and resolving conflict. We're not usually very good at that and we need to learn how to be good at it. Thankfully, God is so good at it and he desires it so much and maybe that brings us to maybe the most foundational question for you. Are you, do you have that resolved relationship with God that you know that you stand on a solid rock of a foundation of relationship with God that is going to make all the difference in all of this? Because I mean, I don't know how anybody makes it without the Lord in the center of their relationship. That's the only way to do this thing in life is the triangle. It's God and you and him and if you don't have this relationship right, this relationship will not be okay. So we pray today that your relationship, first of all, he's not your savior, he's your savior, he's not your Lord, he's your Lord, he's not your everything, he's your everything and this man, this woman that God's put in your life, they're a gift and a treasure. So may we love and may we respect each other and may Christ be the center of our relationships. We'll see you tomorrow on Hope Today. On tomorrow's Hope Today, discover how to maximize God's resources for kingdom impact. Pastor and author Jeff Simmons offers practical advice for building a strong foundation for your ministry that is essential for growth and success. That's tomorrow on Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.