 Thank you for joining me as I sit down with Pastor David and Marie Rosales from Calvary Chapel Chino Valley as we discuss marriage, raising children, and managing difficulties that arise in the family. We're ready to begin, so let's talk marriage. Pastor David, in your book, Blueprint for Family, you mentioned that God's Word tells us that marriage is meant to be one of the greatest joys that we ever will experience as a man and a woman. Why is it then so many people will view a marriage so negatively and it would refer to some marriages as the old ball and chain? That's an old joke. For the longest time, people have referred to their marriage with, it's usually a man calling the woman the ball and chain. But it's reflective, I think, of the fact that men in many ways don't have the same, well, this is probably going to sound outdated, but I think there's truth to it, the same domestic inclinations. And think about it for just a moment. I mean, when a little girl is born, it used to be and probably still is true that that baby at a very early age would be given a doll, a baby doll, usually another little girl, no, a baby girl. My granddaughters all have been domestic. They all have had little dolls. My Olivia right now runs around with little, she has a bear, but she mothers it. She cares for it. She carries it around. She takes care of it because that's, I believe, part of her creation, how God created her. When a woman, a young lady grows older, when they're playing with their girlfriends from very early age, they play house. They have the other little girls around them. They talk to one another and they are very much domesticated like that. That's, I believe, an instinct that God plays within them. At a certain age, they begin to get interested in boys in a way that has more of a sense of one day, I'm going to marry this Prince Charming type guy. And then when they're in their late teens, early 20s or so, maybe a little beyond that now, they begin to want to look at Bride magazine and they think in terms of what kind of gown they want and kind of wedding ceremony. This is all part of the way they are. But look at guys, little boys, did you ever sit down with your buddies and say, you know, let's play Mary? You know, you never did. No boys, most boys never do that. Most boys don't think of what am I going to wear on my wedding day? And who am I going to invite? We don't think at all. A woman will buy, you know, about those things. A woman will buy a wedding gown and then she'll put it in some kind of protector to keep it. So one day she may, on her 10th or 25th or whatever, try and fit into it again, things like that, you know. Whereas a man goes out and rents a suit very often, a tuxedo that another victim wore, you know, the week before, you know, we don't have those sentiments. There's no groom magazine. There's none of that. None of that is part of our makeup. And so we for the longest time have seen the differences between the way men, at least at one time, looked at or viewed marriage and relationship in contrast to how women do. And so look at men in general, too. I've said this before when I've taught on the subject in the past, I've said, every man I know, after they got married has gained some weight. You know, I gained 20 pounds, 20 pounds in about a month and a half, you know, because the wife, you know, wants to feed and care for and also make you a little too fat for the other women to want to look at it. It's a strategy to keep you tubby so that you kind of waddle around, you know, and nobody finds you interesting. And so there's just a difference. And I think that, you know, humorists and comedians have noted those differences for a long time. And so, yeah, men like to get out of that nest every once in a while, they want to do something. And so when our wives say, oh, you can't do that, or you can't go there, or I really would be happy if you didn't, well, we eventually began to, as men, call that our ball and chain. And the ball and chain is in reference to being in prison, being in jail. It's what you put around a prisoner to keep them from escaping. And so that's all reflective of the male's tendency to want to step out and do other things. And so it became humorous. But the fact is, when you have a good marriage, and I'm speaking about a marriage where the husband and wife respect each other, their free time, who they are as people and the things that go into that, you know, there's not a, I'm not wearing any ball and chain at all. I'm totally free. I'm totally free to do what I want. And what I want normally is to be with my wife and to be pleasing to her and to enjoy her. So Maria has never been my ball and chain. You know, if there's anything I have with her, it's freedom. It's a freedom to be who I am, a freedom to do what God called me to do. And so marriage was intended by God to be a fulfilling thing. It was intended to take a man who was in need of completion and to be made one, to be made complete through the bringing of this counterpart, you know, this one who was like him and yet different. And it was intended to be that which completed him so that in the two, they became the one flesh. And so I think that there are men who perhaps, and we'll speak from a male perspective, who perhaps haven't really realized that the woman that God gave to them, which Proverbs speaks about being a gift, you know, it's a prize. She's a prize. Maybe they haven't valued this prize as much as they should. Because without Marie, I'm not complete. I'm not complete. And that brings joy to me, because I have the one who has completed me. And my freedom is to just be with her. My freedom is to just enjoy life, because God knows, you know, as we're growing older, well, the day's going to come when one of us may very well be without the other. And that is not a day that I think I even like to even think about, because she's not my ball and chain. You know, she's the one who set me free. And she's allowed me and helped me to be what God wants me to be. And so we like to laugh and we like to use images like that and joke about that. I think males do that because, oh, because women are strong and because they can, they can tell us what they think and it's part of the game. It's part of the joy. But at the end of the day, God gave us a wife to complete us. And without Marie, I wouldn't be who I am today. And there's just no doubt about that. I'd be a different man. Were I to have married a different woman, you'd have a different pastor of the church, an entirely different man. Because I responded to her, her needs, her wants, the things that make her happy. I learned to communicate to her to understand her words, you know, and to see the things that she valued, the things that make her happy have made me a different person. So her compassion and her care, her generosity, her, her simple way of loving people, her loyalties and her faithfulness and her maternal instincts towards children, you know, let's face it with women, women, you know, this, you've got small children, you know, you take live out perhaps and you're going out and she says to you, I'm already, I'm already missing the kids. And you look at her and you say, what kids? I mean, we're just different, right? Like, hey, are you talking about men? Free at last, free at last, you know, you know, I'm able to be somewhere without thinking of the ones that you carry in your heart constantly. Well, that kind of thing, Marie has that kind of thing is part of what made me appreciate my children and to see them with eyes like that, because as a man, I am more task oriented as a man, I am more doing things, getting things done without distraction. Whereas Marie, the children were not a distraction. The children were her life. And so, because she wanted to care for them and love them and feed them and clothe them and spend time with them and give them adventures in life and all of those things. She, by her example, helped me to realize the gaps in my life that could be filled by those kinds of sentiments and those kinds of actions. And so, you know, we may, some men may look at their wife as a ball and chain, but a man who looks at his wife as a ball and chain, you know, really, really ought to think through what that means and really ought to think how that makes her feel, you know, because if he thinks that she's a ball and chain, I wonder what she thinks he is. Right. And the selfishness that can come just from thinking that, you know, as you're mentioning that Marie feels gaps for you, you ever seen that there's a picture, it's usually with a father and a son, but it can be applied to a husband and a wife and it shows a piece missing from, it shows a man and they show like a piece of a puzzle missing and the wife given him that piece or that would fit that exact part. And, you know, I think when you're mentioning that, I think of that as well. It's not the selfishness of calling somebody a ball and chain. It's literally understanding that the design that God has made between man and woman, especially when it's the right woman or the right man, what a beautiful thing it can be. And you're mentioning, Pastor, it's interesting, you're mentioning you would be a different pastor, a different, just everything would be different. And we talked about this before in a matter of seconds. That's mind-blowing. Yeah. Just one second. Just one second. And things could have, the whole trajectory of your life would have been different. Absolutely. And more unlikely I probably wouldn't be sitting here. We wouldn't be here. This church wouldn't be here. And it was because the degrees of seconds or the measurement of seconds could have been different. One second. That's all it took. One second I didn't know Marie. And the next second, my brother is saying, David, this is Marie. One second. And I will always have, in my mind, I can tell you where I was when that happened. I can tell you she came walking from the right. The door opened up. She came walking in. I saw her. I didn't have this run in across the field in slow motion. Bird singing. My church is a fire. What I saw was just a young woman walking in a room three feet past me, because it's a small room. But I'll always remember that. And it was, hello, David. David, my brother said, David, this is Marie. And that was it. Seal deal. Thank God for that moment, honestly. I mean, I do. I thank God for that moment. And I even, in the church, even thanks God for that moment. Well, some night. You know, as we're looking at starting off right, and that was what the question was, the first question was based on. But you know, when we talk about any building project that may come about, we look at a good foundation as necessary for any project that needs to be done, a building project, it can be any type of project around the house. What would be some foundational essentials for building a good marriage? God's the first. You know, as we're seated here on the stage area, directly to my right is my pulpit. And there's a rug on top of a rug. And that rug is covering the concrete. And we had people come into our church facility, our sanctuary, before we laid the carpet. And this entire stage area, every, every square foot of it, this whole area has scripture that we had given some pens, marking pens, and people wrote their favorite verses. So I am always walking on and standing on Bible verses. I always am. Every time I preach, underneath me, I have my scripture. There is no other foundation laid, which has been laid other than Jesus Christ. That's my foundation. There can be no other foundation. There is a sure foundation. And that's why we call our radio ministry and other auxiliary ministries by the, with the word foundation, because that's my foundation, the scripture. So the foundation of my life is scriptural. It has to be. There has to be a fundamental way of thinking. There has to be something that has established your worldview, something that you cling to that has made you who you are. There has to be. And in my case, it's been wanting to do what I know God's word says to do. And so that's my personal thing. That's Marie's personal thing. Marie is a woman of the word. She loves her devotions. She takes her notes when I'm teaching, even though she could talk to me and say, honey, give me your notes, you know, and wouldn't have to. But I'll be teaching and I'll look down there and I see her scribbling a little note, you know, Marie plus David or whatever it is she's writing. Yeah, por vida con safos, you know. She writes these things, right? It says Ike. Yeah, yeah. And you? So she's, she's writing things, you know, down about what she's hearing, you know, when am I going to eat tonight? You know, stuff like that. Those are her notes. All this time I thought they'd been spiritual. Thank you, John, for revealing the carnality of Marie. She kicks me. And so our foundation is scripture. And so if you're going to have a sure foundation, if we're a marriage, you know, it ought to be the foundation you built your life on. And if you built your life on the word, at least your best, the best attempts on your part with the power of the Holy Spirit in his illumination to understand these things, well, then obviously there's your foundation. So what is the foundation for a good marriage? If it isn't faith in God, if it isn't a relationship with Jesus, who taught me that I'm a sinner in need of grace, who taught me that. So a sinner married another sinner. And this sinner needed grace, which helps me to understand that that other sinner needs grace too, which helps these two sinners in the grace of God to be able to become that one flesh. And so your home marriage has to be built on your faith in God in his word. It has to be. And everything else will blossom from that, which is what our secret, it's no secret, it's biblical. That's what our secret is though. I actually, and I needed more work on this than Maria did. And I just say that quite honestly, you know, because I'm a man of the flesh. I'm a man who can live in the flesh. I'm a man who, once my mind is said, I've got to do this, then I pursue that to the hurt sometimes of others, because I'm going to accomplish this, right? Because that's how a lot of men are. I need to do this, got to get this done. Now, Marie, on the other hand, entered into our marriage, I would say, with this idea that, you know, my life is being completed in my relationship with this man. This man is going to be the father of my children. This man is going to be the one who protects me and leads me. Marie had a very biblical mindset when we got married. I had to learn what that means from a male perspective. I think that's why Paul's command is husbands love your wives, and he asked, tell them why, you know, because Christ, you know, Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. He had to teach us, because during the time of the writing of Ephesians and Colossians and 1 Peter and all, in that day, women were chattel. The Greek woman, you know, was regarded as the one who produced the legitimate children, and that the man would have a woman on the side for his pleasure. In the Romans, the Romans looked as women as pretty much children, you know, and the husband had the right of life and death, you know, that he had gotten from this woman's father. The father had the right of life and death in the Roman society, and that was then vested in the husband. So she was looked at as kind of like an adult child, and that's how it worked. The Hebrews, the Jewish woman was more regarded, but really not as regarded as the man, you know, so for a Jewish woman to change her religious faith from being a Jew to actually converting to faith in Christ would have been an incredibly brave thing for her to do, and the Roman woman and the Greek woman, for them it was unheard of. Also when Paul is writing to, we'll say the Ephesians again, he's having to speak to men who have been in a society that did not value women, did not value them in the way that they were intended by God to be valued. Christianity brought a revolution, people have a tendency of wanting to say that Christianity has dominated and subjugated women. That's only because they're ignorant of history, they're ignorant of 2,000 years ago, what would have been the life of a woman at that time. They're ignorant of that because they have been spoiled in what has taken place here and people right now may be saying, I don't believe that at all. Do your reading, do some homework, and look how women were treated, look at the way they were looked at by others, and that's why Paul had to take these carnal pagan Ephesians, and he had to say, you've got to love your wife because it wasn't mandatory at that time for me to have a love for my wife. She's just my wife, she produces my legitimate children, she takes care of the home. That's why Peter would say that the women shouldn't be worried about their embroidering, their braiding of the hair and jewelry, it's not because women aren't supposed to be beautiful, it's because women of his day had nothing to do, so they played a house, and he was basically saying, you need to redeem the time, you need to be a woman of God, a woman of character. These are the things that women ought to be, why? You are made in the image of God, and that's the context of those kinds of comments that people sometimes don't understand, so you get some church guy saying, well that means that women shouldn't wear makeup and that means that women shouldn't have jewelry, and they take it into an odd place. Why would Peter have said that? It's because you need to redeem the moments that you have, and use those moments like Titus too speaks about, as an older woman, teach the younger women how to build a home, teach them how to love, how to love their husbands and their children. This is something you got in Christianity that was not part of the society at that time. It was a revolution that came through faith in Christ and the transformation of relationships, and so Christianity has really had a tremendous impact that I think sometimes people fail to understand. They don't take the time to really find that out, as you mentioned, and so that will affect the foundations of what a marriage looks like, because they don't take that time. Marie, I'd like to ask you this question. What would be some of the specific things that you were looking for in a husband, and how does that differ from maybe what women are looking for today? Well, what I was looking for is somebody who would love me, and I wanted somebody who had some spiritual background. And at the time, I didn't know, I mean, I wasn't a believer, but when I became a believer, I was looking for this man here. And I wanted somebody like him, I wanted somebody who was loved the Lord, loved the Lord, who was had integrity, who was responsible, who I know would love me, because if he loved the Lord, I knew that he would love me. He was kind and he was respectful and encouraging to me. I wanted a man who was thoughtful and a man who would provide for me, and as we would share and marriage together and bring children into the world as well. And I saw all that in David, which has been a real blessing in our marriage. I saw all that, and I think so many women settle for less. They just want to get married, and they don't even know who they're marrying. That's the whole thing. They don't even know who they're marrying, and you need to know who you're marrying, and you need to study that man. I know that he studied me, and I studied him, and that was it. I wanted to be with him the rest of my life, and together it's, hey, we have differences. That's part of life, and it's a good thing to share your differences, and you know, you grow through all that. We've gone through some challenges, and that's great. Challenges with the children, too. But God has been faithful. He's been faithful, and the foundation was a good foundation, and I would tell the ladies, don't settle for less. Do you think that settling for less is because they feel like there's this time clock ticking that you know more, and I need to get married, and maybe compare themselves to other people, and see them maybe not where they would think is successful by not being married yet, and often times settle for less. It can be dangerous, because it can be a very toxic relationship. If you didn't take the time to get to know pastor as you did, it maybe would not line up with what the things you were looking for. I think a lot of times we can see that when people do get together really quick, it's not till after they're married, they find out, oh man, who did I marry, or I didn't know this about you, or you know, because we see people settling for less. It can be dangerous. Yeah, and some people just date one month, and they're married. I mean, that has happened quite a bit, and they don't even know who they're married to. Just get them mad first, and they'll find out. That's true. Get them upset. Do you think the things that you were looking for then, and it's just reiterating this question again, the things that you were looking for in pastor, there's a significant difference between what you were looking for and what some people are, some of the women may be looking for today? Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. Would you say that have to do with the foundation that as you mentioned? Yes. You know, my mom and dad were married for several years until he went home to be with the Lord. So yes, of course, yes, yes, my parents were together, thank God. That really helped lay that foundation. I didn't believe in divorce, and I still don't. You know, you're mentioning, Marie, the qualities that you're naming for pastor, he was kind, you know, all this that you mentioned. And as you're thinking that, that almost sounds from the fruit of a spirit, those qualities that you see. So you're basing, sounds like you're basing your qualities on biblical qualities by having the foundation in God. And that's what I saw in him, because remember when I went to that study, I wasn't a believer. So those are the things that came out. And he was funny too. And funny to me, for sweet with me. He was, he was. I'm looking today pastor. Yeah, I've always teased Marie. Teased me a lot. My love language, everybody's, they can't talk about love languages. You know, my love language is teasing. When I, when I am comfortable with somebody, I play with them. And, and Marie, she's just easy to tease, you know, and, and I, I loved watching her. I still do after all these years, I still love watching her laugh. I will make her laugh. I say absurd things. I'll say things that she'll just kind of blink at me like, where'd that come from? And just look in her face and that makes me laugh. And I've been doing that since the day basically we met. Yes, definitely. Yeah, definitely. He made me laugh. Yeah, I still do. Yeah, you do. Yeah, that's a, and I've noticed that you'd, I, and you've said this pastor that you do with the people that you love, you tease. And it's a lot of it. I was my dad. My dad was that way. That's how my dad was. And I, I, some things you pick up, you know, and so for him knowing that he didn't say the words I love you, which my dad didn't, I think in my entire life, he may have said that to me, maybe three times in, in all the years I was alive with him. And he died when I was 51 years old, 50, 51 years old. So when you think about that, that, and we were, we were very close, my father and I, and we spent time together. You know, in other words, some guys get married and never see their dad. My dad went to this church. So my dad went to the church for a long time. And I saw him every Sunday and then on other occasions. And I would make him laugh. I mean, you know, he had a silly sense of humor. And so his silliness kind of rubbed off on me. And so, you know, my mom would get kind of huffy with him and he'd say something dumb to her. And then she'd kind of laugh. And I, I just learned that love language. And so when I met Marie, you know, I, that's just how I was. And she actually accepted it. She saw that as, as fun. And it makes her laugh. And so I, to this day, will do that, you know, and she just thinks it's funny. And when she laughs, I, I feel good. There's a picture that you have of Marie. You showed her something funny. It's a cool picture. And you're laughing, you're, you're, you're smiling, you're laughing. It just really captured some of the responses that I've seen you have when Pastor has said something to you. You show he had shown it to me. It's a cool picture.