Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast
The Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast is a simple ongoing conversation between Travis and Dawn Rosinger as they share practical ways couples can strengthen their marriage for a lifetime of love. The Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast is an opportunity for couples to be encouraged in their marriage and be encouraged to fight for love. Hosts Travis and Dawn Rosinger spend time talking about marriage topics relevant to couples in the areas of growing intimacy, conflict resolution, spiritual growth, building relational equity, utilizing clear communication, financial stability, goal planning and much more.
Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast
Episode 163 | Four Important Things Parents Need to Know to Raise Kids - Part 2
Parenting is one of the most rewarding and at the same time one of the most defeating experiences. Parents have their work cut out for them but the pay off is the enjoyment that comes from these amazing children God has entrusted to them. There is one problem though. Once your kids are gone, you can't go back. That is why doing the right things now is so crucial to their lives then.
Join hosts Travis and Dawn Rosinger for Part 2 of this two-part series on Parenting as they share four things parents need to know to raise kids. They get vulnerable sharing their own failures in parenting along with key truths of wisdom for parents who are in the thick of raising humans. Moms and dad's, be sure to check this one out!! Consider sharing it with a friend who is a parent as well!!
Travis and Dawn Rosinger are the Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast Hosts and Authors of the books, Verbalosity - 7 Steps to a Verbally Generous and More Fulfilling Marriage and their newest book, Gripping - What Matters Most | A Life and Relationships That Hold on to You
For more information about Travis and Dawn Rosinger go to Loving The Fight
If you've never listened before and this is your first time, we want to welcome you to the Love in the Fight Marriage podcast, and if you're listening on a weekly basis and you're back, we just want to thank you for hanging out. My name is Travis Rosinger and I am here with my wife, my lifelong friend and partner, but also my co-host, don.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone. Yeah, I just want to say, if you do listen to us on a regular basis, we would love it if you would share our podcast with your friends or give us a review or whatever you want to do to get the word out, because we just love to encourage people and encourage people especially in their marriages, yeah, and in their faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, for us, this has been a really good week. We had a chance to do some traveling, got out of a state and I ate at our favorite barbecue restaurant down in Iowa. That was a lot of fun. And then, of course, we hung out with our friends on Saturday night Wasn't that great, don.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are in a marriage group that we've had for a couple of years now and so we get to hang out with the same group of people bi-weekly and we get to dig into God's Word, just really connect relationally with our friends, and they're just a great group of people. It's cool because this last week there was something that came up and we're like, hey, we need prayer for something. And guess what? We were able to send a text to our whole group and they were praying for us and it was the coolest thing. So it's just a highlight of our week on those weeks that we get to just hang out with them.
Speaker 2:We love to do it every week, but there's other things that we are committed to so bi-weekly. I just want to say, hey, if you are not in some type of group, either in your church or in your community, man, find those people that you can just hang out with, connect with, do life with, pray with, grow with spiritually. I mean, be that iron that sharpens iron. I have to just say groups are the way to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think anything compares outside of Jesus to community. There's something about not having to be lonely or feeling lonely because you're not. You're, like physically, literally surrounded by people all the time, and so it's not something that we just want to encourage all of you to do. It's something we're actually living as well. So we want to do both. We want to keep doing what we're doing and staying in deep community. I mean, these are people who we went through the pandemic with.
Speaker 1:These are people we would love to grow old with, but also we want you to experience the same thing. Now there might be something, though that kind of compares a little bit to community. Don, you're going to agree? I think I've almost overdosed on oatmeal.
Speaker 2:What Oatmeal. Oh, you're going to talk about your new discovery right, yeah, yeah, it's something you've been discovering.
Speaker 2:I mean, just if you guys haven't figured out Travis, really, when he finds something that he likes to, he likes to talk about it and, you know, tell everybody about it Like it's a new discovery. But I laugh because I could kind of take your leave food, but he just thinks it's great when he can, you know, discover something new. So he has found something that he's just very passionate about and I'm sure you're going to share it with everybody today.
Speaker 1:And here's why I talk about it. It changed my life Kind of.
Speaker 1:Okay, maybe my stomach, I don't know, but my taste buds love it. I've been eating a ton of what we call overnight oats, something that my daughter introduced me to about a year ago, and then my kids for Christmas. We celebrated Christmas early with our kids this year, right day after Thanksgiving, and one of them got me four overnight oats like travel containers that I could set up the night before, eat oatmeal, cold oatmeal for breakfast or cold oatmeal for lunch. I'm amped man. It's just so good.
Speaker 2:It doesn't sound super appealing, the fact that it's cold. So I asked you like two days ago. I'm like can you make me some? And you didn't do it. I didn't. I'm like, can I try it? You know why? Right, I'm selfish, I don't want to share Well that's okay. I don't know Cold oatmeal, I like hot oatmeal, but anyway, so it's just a new discovery, something just random, it's fabulous.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, last week in our prior episode we were talking about raising kids and what that looks like to raise kids, and we started to begin to give four things that we think every parent needs to be able to raise kids, and the two that we kind of kicked off with that I think are among the most important would be that first thing is just, god chose you to be the number one spiritual influence in your child's life, and we talked about how, if you don't intentionally walk in that and be that influencer in your child's life, somebody else or something else will step into your place and take over and spiritually influence your children. And so, man, we were just encouraging moms and dads last week in our last episode be the spiritual influencer the number one in your kids life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. God put you in that seat for a reason he believes in you. He's going to equip you. Man, just go ahead and take the bull by the horns and, like, you know if we're going to make mistakes, but go ahead and make sure that you know that I'm the one that's supposed to be here. God chose me, yeah.
Speaker 1:God trust you, god put them there. But the other thing that we mentioned out of the four would be that God chose you to speak words that give life and avoid words that bring death. And you know, that's just something that we've learned along the way, that we need to really watch what comes out of our mouths. We don't want to have anything destructive or profane or frustrating to our kids. Certainly we still have to discipline them and be honest with them. But you know we, we definitely want to be speaking words of life, that we don't want to be a verbal dam. We want to be sharing words of encouragement, love, but especially spiritual words. Like man you're, you know, talking to your kids. Man, you know, son, you are so deeply spiritual or sweetie, I love it when you pray. So, being that verbal, you know, kind of a person that just speaks words of life to your kids.
Speaker 2:Right and it's our choice. We can choose to either open our mouth and when we do open our mouth, we can choose what words come out of our mouth. Now, the third principle that God wants you to be aware of and to live by as parents is this God trusts you, as a parent, to be the spiritual gatekeeper and protector of your home and your kids life. You are the spiritual gatekeeper and protector.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know that honestly done that statement.
Speaker 1:It just brings up a real life story that I know of, of a family that I came across at one point, where, you know there were two brothers.
Speaker 1:They were growing up in one home and one of the brothers grew up and just really turned into a hardworking family man who loved God, but the other brother turned into a person who was super into you know, addictive behavior and, just you know, ended up getting violent and causing tons of problems and using, abusing the people around them. But here's the irony both of those kids came from a home where their parents loved on them, told them that they could be almost anything they wanted to be when they grew up, and both those kids, you know, also came from parents who who told them about Jesus, and so they had what they needed. They had this unconditional, affirming love. But also they had faith and they were taught about Jesus. But weird, like how did one brother, you know, grow up and you know, feared God, loved his family, worked hard, but then the other brother, same household, same household was violent and caused problems and, you know, was constantly into addictions of different kinds.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of easy to sit there and think, okay, wait, what went wrong? Why did one son grow up and do so well and one son grew up and struggle so hard and just really caused a lot of problems? And the answer is this it all had to do with parenting. Sure, they both had those good things, they had Jesus, they had unconditional love from their parents. But one of them decided at like 14, 16 years of age to just begin to make some really rebellious decisions, to accept evil into their lives. And they just began to tell their parent you know what parents? You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna listen to you anymore. And and it was at that moment in this person's life that the parents just finally said okay, well, he's gonna have to learn the hard way. We give up. He's just gonna have to figure this out on their own.
Speaker 2:And they kind of opened the gate right. They, instead of having that gate closed, being that gatekeeper, they opened the gate and this kid, of course, you know, 16 years old at that point, was going to choose, of course, what he wanted to do, because there was no boundaries, there was, there were no gatekeepers. The parents said they're gonna learn the hard way, and and that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, without realizing that, they flung the gate wide open and they they, at that moment, began to fail to be gatekeepers. And it was kind of like you know, they were basically thinking to themselves or saying to themselves well, hey, if that's the way that he wants to be, well, he's gonna have to learn on his own, he's gonna have to learn the hard way. Well, the reason why we bring that up, that story and this whole point, is because that kind of parenting doesn't work.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:It never, ever works. We want to remind you, moms and dads, you are the parent, you are the spiritual gatekeepers and protectors of your home and your kids' lives. So what does it look like to be an effective gatekeeper? Well, it's this don't open the gate.
Speaker 2:I love what you said before you talked about. You know, not surrendering and not opening, but honestly, don't surrender as a parent. Don't raise that white flag and say, okay, here, you know the gates wide open. Don't do that. I know there's days or years or months where it's just difficult and your kids are challenging you in every direction and you know what. It would be easy kind of to walk away at that point and just say you know what you can do, what you want to do, but don't surrender. They need you as their parent to keep that gate closed and making sure that you're protecting them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they need you so much, and I would say almost as much as they need you to point them to Jesus. Equally, they need you to keep the gate shut, and so, some ways that you know, we, as parents, we just fling that gate wide open. I mean, I think of moms and dads who hand their 14-year-old cell phone with no protection on it whatsoever and they're like here, son, you know, there's probably dads across America, around the world, here, son, hey, here's a cell phone. You're going to end up being able to view any kind of hardcore pornography that you want while you, me and your mom are falling asleep at night and, more than likely, you're probably going to have pedophiles that are going to reach out to you and send them, you know, paying naked pictures of themselves to you. But, son, you know, here's happy birthday. Here's your new cell phone. Hope you, you know, have a great time and enjoy it. That is a great example of an open gate.
Speaker 2:There is no boundary. At that point and, honestly, you said 14. I think that's happening way younger. You're looking at eight, nine, 10-year-olds who have these little computers that are in their hand and you, I mean honestly, they're, they're able to access Anything. Anything that could possibly want is right there in their hand. And not only can they access that, but you gave them permission. You gave them access to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if the human brain isn't fully developed until it's 25, I mean if it's, you know, at 12 years of age or 14, it's probably still silly. Putty in there, right Like the human brain, is the consistency of of pudding. So it's probably even, you know, even more malleable, you know, at 12 and 14. And so then they're dealing with that. But I think there's other gates that parents just kind of fling wide open, like allowing their kids to just go hang out with somebody who doesn't know Jesus, a friend from school or multiple friends, and then, you know, just letting them spend the night. It's not that they can't be with them, but but oh, just just go to your friend's house, you know, spend the night. Sure, there's going to be drinking, they're going to watch terrible stuff, they're going to be on their phones. But just go ahead. You know you love Jesus, you're going to be fine. No, moms and dads, it does not work, it's a bad idea.
Speaker 2:I remember, actually, as parents, when we were parenting our kids when they were younger we would we had very strict rules on our kids spending at people's houses, and sometimes other parents would get frustrated with us.
Speaker 2:I'm like, no, we have this one chance to protect our kids, to make sure that they're going into environments where man they're not going to be able to access certain things or they're not going to be exposed to things that would hurt them for the rest of their life, and so we're going to do our job right now as parents. And so we had pretty strict boundaries. Our kids, honestly, if we didn't know their parents, if we didn't know the kids, if we didn't know the older siblings, our kids were not allowed to spend the night at their house, but we wanted to again, we wanted to make sure that they went to a house of you know, especially if they're going to spend the night. People who had a relationship with Jesus, were trying to live moral lives, had very similar values to themselves. We did the best that we could to protect our kids. Were we perfect? No, but we tried. We did not have an open gate there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's worth having boundaries, it's worth taking the push back from other parents. You know, I think of, too, some other gates. You know where parents will say to their kids hey, find your truth, what is your truth, Go ahead and find that. And then they again, they want to support that. Or just letting their kids choose their identity. Yeah, you just choose your identity. Forget what got assigned to you at birth. You just decide what you are and we're going to support that. Or even just parents sometimes throwing the gate wide open with entertainment choices letting their kids watch anything, or they watch, you know, things that the Bible would condemn, but they sit there and watch it in front of their kids, or even privately in their own bedrooms. Or really, even another gate would be letting your kid choose to whether they're going to be going to church or not. You know, hey son you're 12 years old.
Speaker 1:You can choose now whether you want to go to church with the rest of the family and honestly, bad idea. That kind of parent without boundaries and without the right, you know kind of guidelines to help direct them. Yeah, it's just going to lead to disaster, like the two brothers that we mentioned just a little bit ago.
Speaker 2:You know, in John chapter 10, it actually talks about the gatekeeper. It talks about Jesus and he talks actually about being the gate, being our protector. He then goes on to say in John 10, 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. If you're going to keep the gate closed in your home and keep the thief out, you're going to have to know your enemy well and how to defeat him. You can't have your eyes closed. You have to know where your enemy is and there's an enemy coming in to try to you know honestly, destroy your kids, destroy your families. You have to keep your eyes wide open.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, honestly, jesus is the gate. We, as parents, are the spiritual gatekeepers of our homes. We get to make sure Jesus is locked in place, ready to go. But why? Because of what you just said, there is an enemy, there's a, there's a thief that's trying to come in and steal the hearts of our kids and steal their innocence. And we, as parents, we got to rise up and we got to fight.
Speaker 2:And one way to do that honestly. As you're married, as a married couple, you have to be on the same page. You can't have one parent doing one thing and one parent doing the next. For one thing, it's not unity in your marriage and it's not great for your kids. Your kids will know when you're not on the same page.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how do you defeat him? How do you defeat the thief who only comes to steal, kill and destroy, to destroy your kids, to destroy your family? Well, in the book of James, the New Testament, chapter four, verse seven, it says submit yourselves, then, to God. Parents, that includes all of us. We need to submit ourselves to God. It goes on and says resist the devil and he will flee from you. Resist, that's an important word. We have to fight back. Why? Because Jesus the gate warned us about the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. So we got we have to resist the thief.
Speaker 1:But another verse that is much like that, that kind of hits that same idea home. It's 1 Peter, chapter five, verse eight through nine. It says this be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, it says, standing firm in the faith. Again, that same phrase resist him or resist the devil, like we just read in the book of James. So why does that matter? Because it says that he wants to devour somebody. It says that he is a roaring lion, he's looking for someone to devour. He's out there to still kill and destroy. And so, moms and dads, we've got to fight back, we've got to resist him.
Speaker 1:And so what does that word resist means in our world today and in our families? And so I just had to look it up in the original Greek that the New Testament was written in, and it comes from the word anthistime. And the word anthistime, that Greek word, it's the same one in both of those verses. It means to forcefully declare one's personal conviction. So it's not like mild mannered quiet Well, I'm just going to barely tell you what I think in the form of a whisper. No, it's like forcefully declare, like yell it out loud, and it means to keep one's possession, to ardently withstand without giving up or letting go. But here's the irony it's actually a military term in classical Greek, which means to strongly resist an opponent, as if you're in a war, as if you're fighting against an enemy that won't back down. And so we must strongly resist him as an opponent.
Speaker 2:You know what does a war look like. Let's talk through this a little bit more. Soldiers in a war think and act differently than civilians who are caught off guard by an ambush, Because every day, a soldier wakes up and thinks one thing. There's just one thing that they are focused on, and it's this where is the enemy? So every day we need to wake up and ask ourselves where is the enemy? We need to fight evil in all its forms, no matter how it manifests itself. Make sure that evil doesn't get to a place and hide and live in your home or in your kid's life. So maybe it's in the corner and you're just not looking at it. You're not seeing it. Where is the enemy? We, verbally, you guys we have to remember that we have power and authority, especially as Jesus followers and believers. We have the power to tell evil to leave every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can't stress that enough. I know I'm interrupting you, don, but I personally do that. I tell evil, I'm like evil demons, anything that has to do with hell or the devil. You must leave me alone in the name of Jesus and I. I command it verbally, forcefully, like it says. I declare my personal convictions. You're not welcome. I agree.
Speaker 2:And again, we have to remember that we have that power and authority. I did that yesterday for a lady. I was praying and she began to tell me the things that she was struggling with and I felt like you know, that was evil, and so I just commanded the evil to go with her. And there's just some power and authority that came and we knew that that evil was gone. You guys, we needed to shut the gate and just declare Jesus, you are my gate, especially when it comes to their kids and in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Make sure Jesus, the gate, is in his place, on the throne of your hearts and your home, like number one. All right. And the fourth thing that we wanted to be able to give you as parents is this God trusts you to keep the most important goal, the most important goal. Honestly, after being a pastor of like 27 plus years, I've just seen so many adults and young people who were once operating at a deep spiritual level with God, but now they're no longer living for Jesus today, and it's mind blowing, it's heartbreaking. It doesn't make any sense and if it wasn't reality I would deny it, but yet it happens all the time and it makes me think of think of. You know of a family that I know of, where they were once all in ministry together and they all love God, and now the husband and wife are divorced, the kids are off doing their own thing I don't know if any of the family members even talk to each other anymore and it was obvious that they were doing so many great things for God that they got the crosshairs of the evil one put on them and they somehow, over time, lost sight of what the most important goal was. And he got to them. And so, man, we don't want that to be you and your family. Man, we want to encourage you to keep the most important goal, the most important goal. So what is the most important goal?
Speaker 1:Well, Jesus had raised up 12 disciples, as you, many of you know, but of course, he eventually raised up 72 disciples and he, at one point, sent them out and he said hey, I want you to declare that the kingdom of God is here and I want you to pray for people and heal them and cast out demons. And you know, just do the work of the you know and bring the kingdom of God to these people's lives. So, after they had been gone, I don't know, a week, two weeks, three weeks, the Bible says in Luke, chapter 10, verse 17, the 72 returned with joy and they said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. And then Jesus rebukes them and he says this do not rejoice that the spirits, the demons, submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written. Let's be honest, there's nothing better than that. Jesus was pointing out the most important goal that needs to stay the most important goal, and that is that, Don, your name is written in heaven.
Speaker 1:Mine is that those of you that are listening that follow Jesus, your name is written in heaven and that your kids' names are written in heaven. Man, you can be the craziest, most busy sports family, and if you lose sight of Jesus, if your kids are raised and they don't know God, or maybe you're a family that has locked and loaded, you're super hardcore, involved in church and very tight with God, but if you start to let that kind of slide over time and you lose sight of the most important goal and you think, well, we're spiritual, we're strong, we're doing it right. Well, that's what the disciples thought. They thought Jesus, hey, even the demons submit to us, and they got spiritually proud. In reality, Jesus was like you guys have lost sight of it. You have absolutely messed up. Make sure that you rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Nothing compares to that.
Speaker 2:You know what? I really appreciate what David Platt said. He says this our goal in parenting is not ultimately for our kids to get a great education or be great athletes, or to find a great husband or get a great career. Our goal is for them to love a great God man. At the end of the day, when I'm laying in bed, I just sit back and, even though when I was younger, I'm like God, just let my kids love you God. Let them, every single day, I just pray that their hearts are just soft for you, god, that you would speak to them and that their ears and their eyes would be open to you, and that's my prayer. Again, our goal is for them to love a great God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want our kids to know God and that their names will be written down in heaven, that their names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Again, parents, you are that number one spiritual influencer in your kids' lives and you are the one that can speak those powerful words of truth and life and also to be that gatekeeper, that spiritual gatekeeper, but then, of course, to be that person that reminds them what the most important goal is. Parents, remember, god chose you because he trusts you, he believes in you. How you raise your children can and will have a way bigger impact than you might ever, ever know.
Speaker 2:I know, parents, there are days where you just might be tired, you might be discouraged, you want to give up, you wanna walk away, you don't feel like your kids are even listening to you or honoring or respecting you. But just don't give up. I so believe that God really picked you and he's going to equip you with everything that you need, and that's why it's so important in marriage that, as a husband and a wife, that you are together on that same page and you are fighting that battle together. It's so much easier to be in sync with your spouse and be walking through life and parenting your kids together than it is separate, and your kids are gonna notice in your modeling not only how to be a great parent, but how to have a great marriage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think one thing that we would recommend to everyone listening is if you know a couple and a family where they raise their kids and they had like a balanced life and Jesus stayed the center and the family's still together and those kids have grown up and become people that fear God and they're raising their kids to love God Like there's this sense of they didn't lose track of the most important goal and they kind of stayed going full force ahead. Man get with that parents, those parents that are older than you maybe they're 30.
Speaker 1:Those are some good parents to hang out with 40 years older than you and ask them what their secrets were. Go, come on, just give us the download. We need to know. We love your family. We love your kids. You guys did a great job. Fill us in Right absolutely. Well, hey guys, we wanna thank you for listening to this episode of the Loving the Fight Marriage Podcast.
Speaker 2:Remember, guys, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight. We'll see you next time. Ready for bed.