Ep 1050 | Jase & Missy’s Marriage Got off to a Rough Start & the Ungodly Emasculation of Men
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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. We were just laughing at Zach Jace, which we do a lot in leading up to our podcast. You said he's going through a midlife crisis. No, I said he's showing tendencies of that with all the hats and different things. Yeah.

And I said, he's going to pull up one day in a convertible BMW with the top down, you know. He reminds me of our brother, Willie. He does. That's exactly what I was thinking of when I said that. They both are given to tangents. And so it's like they're on something. And,

And then they move on to the next. That is not true. And you accuse me of that. That's not true. It's not an accusation. It's just a parallel of truth. It's okay. Sometimes in life, you're in a room and a conversation comes up and you're like, what are they talking about? And everyone else knows the facts except.

the person so it's like willie willie is not see he's more my adversary i was just had this conversation yesterday with you know why because you're so much alike that's great that's the little secret here you're dreamers is that i told i told i told you i told chad robichaux yesterday who's been on our podcast many times i said uh you know chad's a

I think he's like a black belt in jujitsu or some kind of. Oh, he's an extreme. You don't have to know all the colors. He's not a man to be trifled with. That's what we know about Robichaud. Don't run up on him in a dark alley and think you're supposed to do something. Well, I asked him for his help because I said the last time me and Willie got into it, like really got into it, I was about 25. He was about, I guess, however, 30 or 35. I don't know how much older he is than me.

And he was talking, he was basically running his mouth like he was going to beat me up. And, you know, Willie's always got like that entourage around him. So he had all his like young guys that were like in their, they were teenagers. He was because he was the youth minister at the time. And I'm like, Willie, you will not take, like, I will fold you up like a pretzel. I'm not, I'm not 12 years old anymore. Yeah.

And of course, all the kids were like, oh, no, Willie will kill you. I was like, I'm telling you, boys. And so me and Willie go outside and we wrestle. And I did fold him up like a pretzel until he grabbed a certain part of my body, not to be named publicly on the podcast. Yeah.

And so there was always that. But you act like that's out of bounds. Well, I mean, it is out of bounds. No, the way we grew up, that's the last. That's what you do to finish it off. That's the way. Well, I asked Chad, is there a move to get out of that? He said, there's a move. I'll teach it to you. There's a move to get out of that. I always have a move.

Oh, my goodness. Well. So we went off the rails. We did. I apologize. That just. Yeah, we're talking about marriage today. We're going to have a guest on the podcast later. We are, which I am super excited about. She's going to be amazing. And I thought, because we've been in John 2 in our study, which, of course, included a wedding, Jesus' first marriage.

miraculous sign was at the wedding. And then it goes right into this idea of the temple, which is us. And so, you know, I know she's going to bring some good insight, but one of the things I didn't get a chance to talk about when we were talking about that is our own weddings. Uh, when Lisa was here, she mentioned a little bit about ours, which was a fiasco, uh, because we planned our wedding from one week to the next per my instruction, uh,

which looking back on it was very insensitive to everybody that loves us. But at that moment, I just hadn't learned yet to care that much about other people yet. And so literally we decided from one Friday to the next. So it was chaos, even in just too small. And there were only 30 people at our wedding. It was a backyard wedding. It was a backyard where we got married in the preacher's living room.

Lisa, you know, was, had been kind of sort of kicked out of her house already anyway for marrying me. And so she had been staying at my grandparents until like three days before the wedding. And so she was driving her old, that old white Ford LTD. You remember it, Jace? It was a big car that mom and dad owned and she ran out of gas. So my grandpa went out to help her put gas in it because she was still working. Lisa had a job. And,

and he unfortunately poured kerosene into the gas tank instead of gasoline. Not a good idea. Not a good idea. And it will start up and get going because there's a little bit of gas left in the system, but it didn't go far. So when we were going to the wedding in that car because it now had kerosene, we made it to not quite the end of Leannan Road. Jason, I don't know if you remember this. I remember it well. You were young. And we literally were sitting on the side of the road,

Waiting on a ride. Waiting on a ride and a preacher. To get to my wedding. So you were late. You both were late to your own wedding? Yeah, we were. Lisa had already been in town. I was late. But then my grandpa came by. He had a Ford Fiesta, which was about the size of this table, Jason. I remember that. Little Ford Fiesta. And we all piled in there, about 10 of us.

And that's how we arrived. That was the Prius before the Prius. Yeah, this was the pre-Prius. Well, I will confess. You could hear the gas sloshing in the tank when you reversed the car. That's how. I will confess that I said the only memory I have of my state of mind was I looked at the situation and thought, I'll give this about a year. Yeah.

You'll give the wedding about, you'll give the marriage about a year. Well, I mean. The way it started. I thought, what are we doing here? But look, we were, I mean, let's just go the way we were, but then Jace had the first big wedding, like the.

the fancy wedding. Like the tuxedo? You wore like a tuxedo. Oh, yeah. It was a full-blown. I mean, Missy had some class, but our family, we still were, we hadn't, you know, changed that much. So we didn't even, we weren't sure if dad would come and he did. It wasn't tuxedos at my wedding. Let me clarify that. I did have a suit on and I was clean shaven. Yeah. You were. You were a good looking guy back then. It was kind of a, you know, bring sacrifices to the altar before we get started. Yeah.

Well, my wedding, Al, you were there. You were the officiator. I was one of the two officiants. We had two officiators of the wedding. You were the one I brought to the table. I was Zach's pick, and then Jill's pastor for many years was the other guy.

So if I'm not mistaken, so I did the like opening part and then he did the part like the vows and all that. Is that right? I think that's the way. I don't remember, but yeah, it was something like that. Isn't that something? How you have trouble? Who did your wedding? Ray Melton. Oh. That was, made me feel better. Yeah. Because he was more in line with kind of how my family functioned.

We had a high-end wedding like with Missy. She was like Missy. She came from class. Well, that's what we did. We had the high-end wedding, but we had the preacher who was kind of a country guy from west Texas. And I thought he did a good job. It was real. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, basically, you don't really listen. Do you remember the wedding? I mean, do you remember? I remember, yeah. What he said? Do you remember stuff he said? Because most people don't. I mean, I just remember it was real practical and down to earth. But, you know, I was basically staring at my wife thinking. I do think when you're a virgin and you get married, it's a different dynamic because –

What's fixing to happen is at the forefront of your mind. I'm just being completely honest here. So I'm now, I was looking at her in a way of like... Yeah. Yeah.

You had another motivation. Well, it wasn't even that. It's not y'all are going typical male. It wasn't that. It was just like. When you said that, I imagine like going to a restaurant and just looking at a T-bone steak. That's the main. No, it's like something you fought the whole time you're dating. Yeah, now we're at the moment. I literally have already signed the papers before I got up here. And so I thought technically she is my wife.

It just was a weird, that was my number one thought is I thought, man, this woman is mine. And now I don't have that struggle. I mean, my dad, in the spirit of him, one of his favorite verses, which I actually read

Had trouble finding it. Which, by the way, he read this verse at Sadie's wedding. This was his... But everybody laughed. It was great. It was great. I mean, I think only dad could deliver this. But he wasn't being funny. No, he was not. This was meant to be encouraging? Well... No, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that. But it was just a classic dad. I remember the verse. Yeah, you were there. My dad got up and he said...

If you marry, you have not sinned. This is 1 Corinthians 7, 28. And imagine dad to hear this and like dad doing it. It was the voice of the prophet. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Of course, because now it's gotten awkward because everybody's thinking. What is he doing? Yeah. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life. And I want to spare you one.

This. That was the opening line. As you're about to commit the rest of your life in a covenant marriage, this is Phil's, hey, just so you know.

So it's 2025, Jace. Your words have finally hit home. It was time for me to lose a few pounds. And Zach's even picked up on it. Zach's going to join me. He doesn't need to lose as much as me, but Zach, you're going to lose a few as well. I'm going to trim up. You're making a drastic change, but you look great. Well, thank you, Zach. And the reason this has happened is a group called PhD Weight Loss, Dr. Ashley Lucas, who

is the founder. She's a registered dietitian. She has a PhD in sports nutrition and chronic disease, and she's got a passion for helping folks. And so she sends me a couple of emails, a couple of videos every week that I watch that are very informative. I will say that one of the differences in PhD and all the other diets I've tried is Dr. Ashley and her team do a great job of explaining exactly what is going on in your body.

when you're trying to burn fat. And they teach you what to eat, when to eat. They work on your relationship with food. And they show you how to lose weight for life. If you're watching this on YouTube, this is a picture of me as I began. I've been in the program now for seven weeks. I've lost 28 pounds. I feel great. I'm sleeping well. I'm not hungry on the diet, which is very important. What I love about it, there's no gimmicks, no pills, no shots, no side effects.

Everything is natural. It's not rabbit food. They provide about 80% of the food that I eat at no extra cost to you, which is a blessing for you guys out there. It's worth a look, especially if you're wanting to lose some pounds this year. Join me, join Zach on our weight loss journey. Schedule your one-on-one consultation today by calling 864-644-1900, or you can visit myphdweightloss.com.

That's 864-644-1900. Tell them Al and Zach sent you. Well, it's so classic, Dad, because Sadie has this, it's like she's getting married in Narnia. You know, the setup is just beautiful. There's probably, I don't know, a thousand people there or more. Louie Giglio, like one of our favorite pastors, is doing the wedding. And all of a sudden, here comes dear old dad.

with this right off the bat and it was just a showstopper it was so funny it was like you know the more i thought about it is and we'll you know talk about this with our guests but marriage is i had no idea what this was what was fixed to happen yeah and

I thought, of course, when you're 21, you think you know everything anyway. And you know nothing. We did premarital counseling, which I've shared that story before, which they basically, when we did our, what do you call that, compatibility test. You could have read this verse. Yeah.

Well, the conclusion of our compatibility test was don't get married. You're incompatible. Yeah, and so he was asking me how my prayer life was. And so I thought, huh. But, you know, it felt really that that is a point. You get thrust into this, and it becomes this process that's ever-changing. And I really believe the more you study—

is that you just start growing from there. You can either grow apart or you can grow together. And all these obstacles that happen, which aren't going to happen, and it's like a new normal. It's like a new normal. It's a new normal. It's a new normal. But, you know, I read that in 1 Corinthians 7. What I find interesting, to go back to John 2,

So he does this sign at this wedding, and we mentioned the significance of us being married to Jesus and how maybe that was a foreshadowing of new creation. So you also see that here in 1 Corinthians 6, right before that. I mean, the whole chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians, it talks about all these different arrangements, and he addresses them all.

But, you know, that comes on the heels of 1 Corinthians 6 about the temple, your body being the temple of the Holy Spirit. And you remember 6, what is that, 18, that says, flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. And then it says this, this is 1 Corinthians 6, 19, do you not know that your body is

is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you've received from God. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. Well, just like John, it went to the temple and thought just as Jesus cleared out the temple. And then they're like asking for this sign that he has this authority, which is really what the beginning of John is all about. Is Jesus...

who he claims to be. Who do you think Jesus is and where does he get this authority? And so you see by his first two signs in quotations, because even though the temple, you know, he just, there was no miracle in that. He cleared it out. But then he makes this statement in reference to the question, what is the sign that you have authority to do this? And he said, destroy this temple.

and I'll raise it in three days. So you fast forward to what Paul said in Ephesians 2, where it says that we didn't read this last time, but it is such a profound verse. The reason I'm going to Ephesians is because that's where we go to talk about marriage. That's the most Ephesians 5. But in Ephesians 2, when he says you're members of God's household built on the foundation of

of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself as his chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. Yeah. And so even that, when you go through the book of Ephesians, he brings up the kingdom in chapter 5 and just kind of apply this to marriage because then in John 3, he's going to talk about being born again

to see and enter the kingdom. So then he says, but among you, they're not, this is 5.3, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality,

or of any kind of impurity or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people, nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For this you can be sure, no immoral, impure, greedy person, such a man as an idolater, has any inheritance, well, look at there, in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Well, if you just apply that to your marriage, now he's talking big picture, us married to Christ, right?

through all of Ephesians. That's why when he gets to Ephesians 5, he lays down this foundation that Jesus, you both have an opportunity to play the role of Jesus in your roles, but then he unveils the mystery of what he's talking about all along. And it gets back to this, you both have the Spirit of God, you're married to Christ. I just think it's fascinating that you see all these theme lines where

And the whole point of what I'm saying is your marriage in Christ and then you being married with another person should reflect that.

the image of God. Right. I mean... Well, and not just the image of God, too. It also is reflective. I love how you connected that passage on the temple with Ephesians 5. What does marriage have to do with the temple? It has everything to do with it because he says, I'm not talking about marriage. I'm talking about basically our union with Christ. So when you think about what Jesus is saying in John 2, it's the union...

Of God and man in a new temple structure with Jesus being the cornerstone, us being the living stones. Marriage is a picture of that because it's the it's the mingling of souls. It's the it's the two coming into one. And so you see this as a centerpiece, really, of of the entire story.

biblical story that God is going to make his home with man and marriage is a reflection of that because you're seeing true intimacy being fulfilled in the marriage. And you're also seeing Paul, remember he's riding a fault line here between the Jewish mindset that he's been a part of. And now this Gentile mindset,

that comes in, this is like two rivers coming together. So when he's describing in Corinthians and Ephesians, he's also speaking to this same exact thing of temple and coming together husband and wife, but he's speaking to one group that had a whole betrothal thing

Everybody was a Hebrew. They understood Yahweh, along with all these people that had no semblance of that whatsoever. So it's really interesting. Which is Paul's point in 1 Corinthians 6, is the point is the problem with sexual sin is...

is it's not a violation of some arbitrary commandment that God gave us. What it does, it's anti-Trinitarian, it's anti-temple. Because your body, if you understand your body to be the new temple, we are living stones. Then when I unite myself with another person, I become one with that person. And that's the argument Paul's making. All right, we're going to land this plane. We've got our guest coming on, so we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll introduce our guest for today. ♪

Well, guys, here's what I've learned in my 47 years is that life is moving quickly and my kids are getting older. Every time I look at them, I'm amazed at how quick they're growing up. You guys are both grandpas now, so I'm sure you see the same thing, correct? I actually have a granddaughter that got married. So I

I'm just, you know, at any moment's notice from being a great-grandfather, Zach. So, yes, it went by super fast. Well, one of the things about being a dad and I guess a granddad too is you do think a lot about taking care of your family, providing for them, giving them protection,

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Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states and prices are subject to underwriting and health questions. Our guest is here, Lisa Brevere. Lisa, welcome. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Slightly jet lagged, so I'm not sure what's going to come out, but I'm up for it. Because you were at the same conference I was at in London, but we never crossed paths there, unfortunately. Yeah, there was 4,000 people. That was amazing. 4,000 smart people.

That's why Jason and I didn't get invited. I didn't get the invite. We just found out. Thank you, Lisa, for clearing that up. I was like, why didn't we get to go to London? Oh, it's for only smart people. Okay, we got it. You had to be invited. A special invitation only. But I could have got you guys in. No, no, no. Next year. Next year. Well, Lisa and your husband, John Brevere, you guys have a podcast. Written a ton of books. I don't know. How many books have you guys written collectively? I know it's a lot. 48.

Oh, wow. Wow. So millions of copies all over the world. You guys have been in ministry for a long time. A beautiful voice in this cultural moment. So we're glad to have you here. I'm super excited to be on. You guys are my dynamic. I am the mother of four men.

And of course, the wife of one man. So men is my world. So I love that. Now, Lisa, you've referred to yourself when I asked you, how do we introduce you? You referred to yourself as the Sicilian godmother. So that's how we'll introduce you to our audience. Well, you know, my husband is Italian and I'm Sicilian. And how we distinguish those two is Italians are known for feeding people.

And I would even say dressing them. But Sicilians are known for killing people. So we have a little bit of a different approach to parenting and life. So people just go in there at the front end. But if you have four boys and a lot of grandkids, you're doing a lot of cooking. I know that at some point. It's the process. That is not a lie. Pasta, pasta. So we were going to talk about marriage, but I'm not sure where this is going to go now. No, I'm not.

Yeah, we had started the conversation before you got here. We're in John 2. We were talking about the connection, the human body to marriage, the union of souls, 1 Corinthians 6, your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. You have a podcast, I think coming out pretty soon, on marriage, an episode on marriage. So we were going to

to kind of pick your brain a little bit. Al and Lisa do marriage ministry as well. Al, you guys just came off an event, right? Yeah, we have a yearly marriage refresh we do for our church, but it's kind of expanded because we have such an impact because of this podcast and other reasons. So we've got people that come from all over the country.

for a couple of weekends. And, you know, it's just really neat. Lisa and I usually are a part of it. Sometimes we do some teaching. This time we did a little bit of our story. And one of the things, Lisa, that...

I was very interested in, and I haven't read any books yet that you've written, but I'm excited to do that, is we talk a lot about sort of the trauma of our own lives as individuals and how the way we describe it is we came into marriage and

And we had this picture of like this giant pile of suitcases. And we said, we just brought all these suitcases in, but instead of really opening them up and kind of seeing what was all in there, we just kind of stuffed them in every available crawl space of our marriage. And then all of a sudden it was like a spring trap that came about, you know, for us about the 15 year mark where all these things just came rushing out and almost destroyed us. I mean, it was just like a tsunami, uh,

of difficulty. Lisa had been molested as a child. She had had an abortion as a teenager. I had been a prodigal and gotten into all sorts of stuff myself. And so all that flood just came out in our relationship, and it almost destroyed us, except for obviously the blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is the only thing that saved us. But I was just interested to hear, because I know, like Zach said, you recently did a podcast on marriage.

Have you found that to be true in your walk in terms of people and how this early trauma in their lives have affected, you know, how they, how they get married and how they stay married? Absolutely. And, you know, crawl spaces are scary spaces. So I definitely, if you put something in a crawl space, it's not going to stay there long. No, John and I have some similar stories. I don't know if you've ever heard John talk about this, but John was addicted to pornography.

And so he thought getting married was going to fix that. He thought, okay, I'll get married and then that will fix it. And then I brought my own issues to our marriage. I had been raised to be an exceptional heathen. And so I was trying out for the University of Arizona sexually gymnastics team. I mean, I was just like full on heathen, heard about the love of God.

And actually, John illegally dated me. He invited me to a Bible study picnic. I heard free food. I go to this picnic. I hear about that when God looks at me, he would no longer see me, but he would see Jesus. And I realized that I was covered in shame. And so I interrupted John while he was singing awkwardly in 1981. This was not...

the best Christian music season. And I said, Hey, is this true? Is this true that God could ever look at me and not see me? And John was like, absolutely. And we went walking on Purdue's campus. He starts witnessing to me. I interrupt him. I think that 70s thief of the night movie is going to happen. John's going to disappear. I'm going to get beheaded. I'm like, I need to do this right now. So on my first date with John, I got born again. I got saved. I

I was like, I don't know what we need to do. Light candles. Like what needs to happen needs to happen right now. And, you know, I got born again. And then John said, now you're safe. I said, what does that even mean? And he had no idea. He was talking to a 21 year old girl.

who had an eating disorder, who had lactose intolerance, who had so much sexual shame. And he said, well, salvation means you're whole again, spirit, soul, and body. And I don't know why I picked the easiest one, but I said, so I can have cheese now that I'm a Christian? You said I could have cheese. He said, I never said that. He said, I never said that. I was like, what?

I want cheese. I want cheese. I'm Italian. I want cheese. And so he was so nervous, guys. He had me do a fill in the blank prayer, which looks like, thank you, Jesus, for healing me up. And I just put the word in lactose intolerance. And I felt this love come into my body and untie all the knots that have been in my stomach since I was 15. And I was completely healed. I mean, crazy, amazing. But there are certain things that God's like, I'm done.

I'm going to do this one. I'm going to do this one for you. But then there's others you're going to have to walk out. And it's interesting though, you're talking about, I think there's two of my most popular podcasts. One is on demons. I'm like, who knew? 500,000 views about the demonic. And then the second one was about how I almost destroyed our marriage.

how, how my fear and my need to control. And, and I did not walk well with my husband from a place of bondage to freedom. You know, John, John often has people say, what was, what was Lisa's response to, you know, your, uh, wrestling with that? Cause that was the first four years of our marriage. And I always, when people ask me, I say, I didn't navigate it. Well, I did not, I did not, uh,

I did not come to my husband and say, I believe you want to change and I'll support you. I shamed him. And so many women make this mistake. They say, oh, if my husband has a problem with pornography, that's his problem. What was his problem before you got married? Now it's

your problem. It's not that you caused it. It's not that you're less than, but when something comes into a marriage, then the two become one, they need to fight it together. And so I wish I would have, I wish I would have been there for him on that. I wasn't, I had was dealing with my own issues of shame of thinking, well, because I had been promiscuous, why would I think I deserved anything better? And so the first four years of our marriage

were very broken years. You made it longer than we did. We exploded year four. And I'd had my first baby. And here's the thing. I was working full-time. John was working part-time. I have this beautiful child. I am...

breastfeeding him. You know, I'm pumping my breasts at work. I'm crazy woman. I'm making all the food. My shoulders are attached to my ears. I'm all stressed out and I'm nagging my husband. I'm thinking this man doesn't do anything. And one day I'm in the shower because I'm trying to release the tension in my shoulders. And I literally hear this question. You don't think John's a good head of the household, do you? I thought, no, I know he's not.

And I hear you think you can do it better. I was like, I know what I am doing it better.

And then I heard, but it's a yoke to you, Lisa. And it's a mantle to John. Throw it off. And then all of a sudden, I don't know if you've ever had this happen where you have been so demeaning or hateful and you thought in the moment you were funny or wise. It was like a replay. And I just started crying. And I remember I threw on a robe. I went to John. I said, listen, I am so sorry.

I thought submission meant that if I agreed with you, I did it. And if not, I fought you tooth and nail every inch of the way. And I said, I will quit my job tomorrow. I said, I just want to be one again. And John said, I don't think you need to quit your job, but I do think you need to quit thinking you're the source. Because we can know that God is the source.

or we think we're the source. And I watched my husband go from a little boy that I nagged like a mother to a man that I respected as a leader when I stopped being his mother and I started to be his wife. Wow. So good.

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What a word for people. I mean, that, that, that, what you just said is almost, it's very similar to the experience me and my wife Jill had. I call it our Jerry Maguire moment. Cause you didn't have that scene in Jerry Maguire where she walks in Renee Zellweger says, you complete me. And then that's like this thing. Right. And I'm like, that was how we approached our marriage was I felt like I had to bear the weight of Jill's completion myself. And I think she probably felt that in some regard, but I would never have felt safe to share with her any struggle with a, a,

a porn or lust or anything that would make her feel less than that was a, that would never be shared with her. But the Bible is pretty clear when, when James says, James five confessor says to one another so that she may be healed, but I'm not going to confess that to my wife, but that's the exact person you need to confess to. But it was in a moment we had at seven years in where it was a realization that

that, you know what? I cannot complete you. And I think we had this moment. I remember where we were at. We were in my vehicle, my car, and we had this big fight. And I finally just said, I can't complete you. I can't bear the weight of sustaining your stability anymore. And most importantly, I want to be known and I want to be one, but I can't be known because I can't share with you anything. And it was like a moment in our marriage where

It was for the first time probably in seven years ever that she saw me in a moment and I saw her in a moment. And there was this not affirmation of our sin, but there was this presence that like, I see your sin. I see your nakedness. I see your disgustingness. And I'm not leaving. I'm here. And it was a moment like a weight was lifted off my shoulder, a way to performance. I think what you just articulated is.

is probably the biggest barrier to intimacy in marriages across the globe is exactly what you just articulated. Well, and I do think there's been an emasculation of men and women trying to be men. And I mean, we've had this gender confusion as far as not, I don't even like to use that word anymore. We've gotten our roles confused where men,

Men have been shamed into trying to be more like women. Women have been told if you want to be powerful as a woman, act like a man. And so now we've got all these confused things. And then if my husband, I love my husband. I have the best husband in the world. I always tell John, you are my favorite husband. He's like, I'm your only one. This version, this version, John 2.0, 3.0, whatever. This is my favorite. But the truth is,

John is not my source of life. Yeah.

I love being a mother. There's nothing I love more than being a mother and a grandmother, but my grandchildren and my children aren't my source of life. If I do not get my life from Jesus. Yes. Yes. Yes. I've written books. Yes. You know, I'm a New York times bestselling author. Do you know what happens when that happens? Nothing. You get an email. That's it. Your whole life or some kind of achievement, right?

You will live empty. And there comes a place where you realize that, you know, I live my husband to serve Jesus and serve him. I mean, just even even it was so shocking to me. And women, they want to be loved. But I think I just posted something about marriages to people committed to bringing out the best in one another.

Whereas early on in our marriage, we're trying to best one another. And women say things like, well, what if my husband's not committed to bring out the best in me? I'm like, be the bigger person. I mean, it's like people are so self-centered. So like it needs to be about me, my needs, my dreams, my hope. Well, there's no just me anymore. Once you get married, it's a one.

And it's just it's so sad because so many people are missing the richness of marriage. John, I've been married 43 years this year and I love it more now than I did when I married him. Yeah. And that's exactly the way I feel. Well, I've been married 34 and I think all this conversation takes me back to the garden story.

And you see, you know, God is the architect of marriage. And being real specific of, you know, it's like when President Trump signed this executive order declaring two genders. And I guess this hit me. I think I had Fox News up and it was like breaking news. The president has declared two.

The United States, male and female. And I looked at my wife and I said, that news broke thousands of years ago in a Bible. Lisa, Jason and I are lobbying for a new cry on on the bottom of Fox News or any of them that says broken news. Yeah. Because this news has already been broken. But what I was going to say is... Which, by the way, Jesus...

When he was addressed about marriage, actually about divorce, Matthew 19, guess where you're at, right where you're going. And I think I know why. I mean, God is eternal, and he knew that there's always going to be resistance, especially in the spiritual forces of evil, which is why I think your demon podcast did well. Well, because people know that it's out there. Yeah.

I mean, all you got to do is declare Jesus as Lord. And I listened to a couple of your podcasts just in prep of this, and I thought, oh, there's going to be resistance because you're out loud and on purpose for Jesus like we are. But there's also resistance in marriage, and it makes me go back to that Genesis 2 and 3 scene where you really see, because we tend to have the Hollywood view of, oh, I came to Christ, right?

So now everything's going to be fantastic. You know, until a couple days later when you face resistance and it becomes a process and a struggle that helps you grow and mature in Christ. But it's going to continue to happen. And the same thing happens in marriage. And then you see both of these things happening in the garden.

Where you're like, where was the breakdown here? Because here's Eve having a toxic conversation with a demonic presence, the evil one. Because I'm like, well, where's Adam in all this? Why is he? Well, he's over there silent. Yeah. Just why didn't you step up? Yeah. And then the famous line when it's like, did God really say, you know, from the evil one?

Which is always going to be the question that we have to ask ourselves in marriage and in our walk with Christ. And that's where I really see these two things combining that you're hitting on. I mean, it is a daily walk as we mature and grow in our relationship and our marriage. And we all have those moments.

those conflictual stories. You know, my background, they've shared theirs. No, we were different. We were virgins when we got married. We basically had a Jesus-centered dating relationship. And I tell people that because I use it to tell young people that God's way is always the best way because I wish I'd had somebody tell me it's okay not to have sex with a woman until you get married because all my friends were ridiculing me about that. I mean, it was...

just completely horrible. So I try to give young people encouragement of that. But having said that, so you would think, oh, it's all going to be rainbows. And oh, no. I mean, all of a sudden, I go out the first year of our marriage and share Jesus with everybody that I know. And you think, well, what could happen? Well, I just left her. I mean, our first year was terrible as far as our marriage.

And because she was like, boy, you're really on fire for the Lord. But I'm getting the worst of you when you come back and you're tired. So it was a terrible way to start our marriage. At some point, we realized we're going to have to do this together. Right. And so you work it out through the 34 years. But I was just going to get your take on how those two things go together in that relationship.

There's always a struggle in your walk with the Lord and in your marriage. Yeah, I mean, I think you're actually painting a very accurate picture of some of the things that we went through. My husband being a minister, it was almost like a badge of honor to say, I was only home three days this month and I have this many miles on my flights. And I told John, you know, we get you at your worst. You come home and it's a laundry drop.

And, you know, you're tired, you're grumpy with the boys. And, you know, I used to say, when do you leave again? And he'd be like, why are you saying that? I'd be like, because it's easier when you're gone. And so we had to actually have some conversations around that to keep that a priority. So I'm not allowed to travel and speak unless John approves my schedule.

and I approve his. So when he gets invited, it gets sent to me and I see his schedule and then we talk it over. I have, I think, 48 hours to either talk to him about it or approve. If I don't answer, then it's an automatic approve. But we always sit down and we say, okay, this is what this looks like. If you go on this trip or if I go on this trip, we will not see each other for 10 days. Are we okay with that?

And then we're like, okay, we're okay with that if we can make margin over here for us. I want to talk to you today about our good friends at NetSuite by Oracle. And Jace, you know a little something about Oracle. I actually own shares of Oracle. I bought this company years ago in my portfolio and bought

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And so we've made our time together a priority. And again, we're empty nesters, but I already mentioned John's Italian, I'm Sicilian. We have six of our nine grandkids down the street. We walk down the street almost every single night, read books to grandkids, kiss them goodnight. We want to be close to family, but we also want our kids to be able to build their own family. So we're watching our kids do it better because of our mistakes.

I want to tell you guys this crazy story because I feel like it fits into what's going on behind the marriage. So I live here in Franklin, Tennessee. It's a Christian bubble and there's a coffee shop and I was interviewing someone for a job and I decided to wear this T-shirt that said the future is male and female.

And the men were like, looking at me smiling, like, thank you. Thank you for including us in the future. I'm like, I had some women come up to me and they're like, I want that t-shirt. So I thought, okay, everybody's happy. So I put on sunglasses and I take a selfie and I write, the future is male and female. And because without male and female, there is no future. And

That's not really deep. That's just your parents. And so I think in everybody's happy. Nine hundred and twenty two comments later, people have blown up my social media. You are co-signing with patriarchy. You're a Karen, which as a.

I have dual citizenship with Italy. I'm like, you just called me a Karen, a bigot, a demon of hate, a transphobe, a homophobe, just all this. I mean, any possible name that you can think of, I got called it. Then the Christians were fighting with the people for calling me names. And it was so much. I thought any time there

There is something this disproportionately responded to. There is something more behind it. So I just typed into my computer and you guys could do this Google search. What is the origin of the quote? The future is female. And a Washington Post article came up.

And it was from, I believe, 2015, but it might have been 16. And it was from, it said the origin of the quote, the future is female, was from a lesbian separatist group called Labrys. And I thought, what in the world is Labrys? Well, Labrys is the two-headed axe carried by the Greek and Roman goddesses. And then it said that the quote, the future is female,

I mean, this is crazy, was a call to war, an invocation and the spell to cast. And Hillary brought it into her campaign. Twenty five percent of the proceeds, not profits, go to Planned Parenthood. So they have blood sacrifice. They have witchcraft. They have a call to war. And so there has been a spiritual attack. And if you go back to the roots of all of this, it's always spiritual.

deconstruction of the family, deconstruction of marriage. I had no idea as I deep dived into some of these topics that, and this is crazy. In 1969, 12 women got together in Greenwich Village and they said, why are we here today? And they said, to make a revolution. They said, what kind of revolution? Cultural revolution. How do we make this revolution? They said, by destroying the American family.

And they said, how do we destroy the American family? By destroying the American patriarch. This is way back in the 60s. And they said, and how do we destroy the American patriarch? They said, by taking away his power.

And I thought, okay, how are they going to take away his power? By destroying monogamy. They understand that what God sent in the motion in the garden, when God said, it's not good for man to be alone. They understood that male and female was a power union. So they said, okay, we got to figure out a way to separate the man and the one. And then they said, how do we destroy monogamy?

They said, we will promote promiscuity, prostitution, eroticism, which would be pornography and homosexuality. And then they went on to form now the National Organization of Women. That is terrifying.

the feminist agenda in the United States, I'm not talking about early days when they said, let's make sure we can all vote. The feminist agenda, they had achieved their votes, they had achieved this. Now their goal was a Marxist deconstruction of

the family. And Zach, you and I were there listening, what was the whole purpose of art? We need to restore the family. We need to restore Judeo-Christian ethics. And so they have been so systematic. And this was something that was always shocking to me. When I was writing The Fight for Female, when I was looking at who was supporting the trans movement,

was women. Like, they were okay with young girls being displaced in sports. They were okay with female prisoners being raped by guys who had decided to identify as women. And I thought, why are they silent? Well, it's because it supported their agenda that they had started way back in the late 60s. Ironically, they're not all silent now, though. Like, J.K. Rowling's taken quite a bit of heat as kind of a member of the third wave feminism. But she's not the only one.

She's like the only one. Yeah. But the irony is, is that what the future is female. The truth is, is that mentality actually is the destruction of what is female in the end. That's the irony of the whole thing is that Carl Truman talks about this, which I had on my other podcast before.

Yeah, he's great. He talked about it because of the death work. And I think that's the look at the end result of this. These are death works. And and what Christ has come to give his life is one of those moments at the at the meeting we were at. I thought was so profound when Osgedes got up and essentially there's a lot of people are talking about Jesus or the Judeo-Christian ethic is the hope.

And he got up and said, well, only if one thing is true, only if Jesus is the son of God buried and killed and buried and resurrected, like he has to be true. And it is true, but Christ being center is the hope. Christ being who he is, is our hope. And I, that's why I always have an optimistic view of the future simply because I know who the king is and I know who wins, who wins this thing. The king, the king and his kingdom win in the end. Well, and it,

The great news is he's already won. I mean, Jesus was a lamb slain. Well, what was so crazy after I looked all this up,

My front door opened. I mentioned I lived down the street from my grandkids, which I think this is what happens. A 14-year-old grandson says, can I have a snack? His parents say no. He gets on his bike, rides down to grandma's house, walks into my pantry. I say, yes, you can have whatever you want. So he's rifling through my pantry and I look at him and I said, Asher, what are your thoughts on the quote, the future is female? And he just looked at me

And he said that I'm unnecessary. And they are saying the suicide rate for 24 to 35 year old men has never been higher because of exactly that. They have been told they are unnecessary. And, you know, all of the toxic masculinity, all of the shenanigans.

shaming of what it means to be a man, distortion of what it means to be a woman. For me, this is an attack on the image of God. And so I'm very outspoken about the sanctity of life and the image of God in male and female. Now, and you, and you know, every time we look at things that wonder how could this, uh,

this philosophy occur, what you described, how could something like that be birthed? We all know it had to come from the evil one. I mean,

I mean, only he could devise plans like this that not just happened in a decade, but happened over the course of a series of decades. And so what you were describing in the 60s, Jace was living out in the 80s by all of his peers saying, well, you're an idiot if you save yourself for marriage. So I think it's all the things that you described. Lisa, I realize we've got to have you back on because, as always, the best podcasts are the ones we can't believe we're out of time.

which we are. But I want our folks to know how to find your information, your books. I have here lisabevere.com. Is that the best place to go to find your information? Yeah. I mean, we've got lisabevere.com, but I'm on Instagram, Facebook. I can't even get into my own account on Facebook, but there is a Facebook. And there's, of course, Twitter. I mostly also believe YouTube. I have found...

So much freedom where you don't have to do these tiny short clips. So having a little bit of an opportunity for longer form content on YouTube and then our books are available on Amazon. So check out Lisa and John and what they're doing, their podcast. Lisa, thank you for coming on Unashamed. You fit in beautifully here and you're always welcome back. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast.

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