Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast

Episode 168 | Do Nothing, Lose Everything

• Travis Rosinger and Dawn Rosinger

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It's the start of a New Year and a chance to look at your life a littler closer. What will you do differently and how will you behave differently? Will you change one thing or change everything? Ironically, it's the people who are willing to constantly look at their own lives and move themselves forward with needed changes that allows them to position themselves to succeed in life and in their marriages. What if you overlooked all of that and even though you knew you needed to change, you still chose to do nothing? What would happen? What would you be missing out on? Could your marriage recover?

Join hosts Travis and Dawn Rosinger as they talk about what can happen when someone chooses to do nothing with their life and marriage. They also share something. beautiful that will happen when a couple chooses to look deep into their own souls and decide to make changes, changes that will thrust their marriage forward. Join us for this insightful episode!!

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

Dawn Rosinger:

Hey, welcome back to the loving the fight marriage podcast. My name is Dawn and I'm sitting here with my husband and my co-host, travis.

Travis Rosinger:

I'm right here, and so are you. We're glad that you guys are joining us. Thanks for taking the time. I think all of us just want our lives, our marriages and our relationship with Jesus to get better, so it's super fun to be hanging out with you, dawn, and with all of you guys that are listening today.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, hey, I just wanted to let you guys all know that I just did something that hopefully will make Travis proud of me this morning, and it is that I'm on the edge of my seat. What is it? Well, you know I'm not the greatest, you know, when it comes to gifts. It's not the greatest thing that I don't receive gifts super well, but I don't give gifts super well, it's just not. I want time and words or whatever, but I was given a gift this last May.

Travis Rosinger:

You were.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yes, I think I know where this is going, so six months ago and I just opened it like, took it out of the box and I'm charging it.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, it's like brand new in the box for like eight months and it's a really really nice, it's a modern day and I watch and I have one that I had.

Dawn Rosinger:

you know what version is?

Travis Rosinger:

this. I don't know it's one of the earlier versions, but it's all scratched and beat up the band's, but it works great.

Dawn Rosinger:

So you and the kids were so kind and bought me a brand new one, because you know which. I like my watch and I'm very consistent with putting it on. But I did. I left it in the box because I had this one that was still working, but I opened it up and it's charging right now up on.

Travis Rosinger:

That's it. You made my year, I think, actually not my week, not my day, but my year. Yeah, you're going to use it and it was an expensive gift and it looks beautiful. It's brand new.

Dawn Rosinger:

I'm laughing because I opened it up and like oh, it looks really nice, there's no scratches on it. The band is in imperfect condition and it looks really nice. Now my one that I'm wearing right now kind of looks junky.

Travis Rosinger:

So I'm excited, but anyway.

Dawn Rosinger:

So that was a highlight of my morning, beyond having an amazing fire up going in the fireplace right now. Oh, it's great.

Travis Rosinger:

It's our day off morning and so we get a couple of these a week. And yeah, I looked at you this morning as we're sitting there sipping our coffee and I looked over at you and I said, hey, how about a fire? And so it built a raging awesome fire and it's been burning for hours. And just nice to just sit and be comfortable and enjoy life.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, this week was your week to pick where we go on our date. We typically go on dates or Wednesdays or Thursdays, and we try to switch off weeks. Who picks what? And so this week, this Wednesday night, which is the last work day of our week, because we work, you know, saturday through Wednesday.

Travis Rosinger:

It's our Friday night. It is our Friday night, yeah.

Dawn Rosinger:

You picked and we came home. We actually just ate in because we didn't want to eat out, because we wanted to save some of our calories, because we went to a movie, and we have this bucket that we bought for $25 and every time we bring it back we get a refill.

Dawn Rosinger:

So it was a good bargain, but we knew that we were going to consume a lot of calories and fill us up on popcorn, but we went to a really good movie and I just want to give a shout out to the movie. It was called the Boys in the Boat and it was a movie about the Washington state, the rowing team and how they made it to the Olympics in Berlin 1936,.

Travis Rosinger:

I believe yeah.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, they were the underdogs and, honestly, even just financially, they were the underdogs. Most of the kids that made that team that year financially struggled and were in hard times and they just worked hard. They were determined and they ended up making it all the way to the Olympics. It's funny because it was the JV boat that actually made it. It wasn't even the varsity boat, isn't that?

Travis Rosinger:

incredible. Yeah, they ended up winning the national championship, I think, and then ended up going to the Olympics. But you're right, they were not only underdogs from their state, from their school, but they were below the varsity team. So crazy, crazy story of perseverance, hard work, super inspiring. What a great day, very inspiring. I picked well, didn't I? Don?

Dawn Rosinger:

And I love it when I can watch a movie that's real, that actually happened, but then also is inspiring. And they were underdogs. And you know me, Travis, I have this thing I'm always cheering for the underdog. I want to always make sure that we are. I mean, there are times in our life that we have been on underdog right.

Travis Rosinger:

Oh, for sure.

Dawn Rosinger:

And so be able to take the energy and try really hard and see people succeed Just phenomenal. So I recommend that movie again. It's called the Boys in the Boat.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, we loved it. That was so cool, and in the middle of it there's a love story. So that's kind of fun as well, and we don't want to ruin and spoil the movie, but you got to watch it. It's real life. Yeah, it happened. Yeah, and that movie is a great segue into the topic that we're going to be talking about today, because those students who are in the depression era, you know where they had absolutely nothing and they're trying to scrape together money to pay their own way not their moms and dads or you know some kind of rich foundation that their grandfather had left for them, but they were trying to pay their own way through college and they jumped on. They made the decision to jump onto the rowing team because they could get a free place to live and a little bit of money in their pocket.

Travis Rosinger:

So they could pay for their college, survive and pay for their college, and so that just reminds me of an experience that took place in my life. Don you know this well, but those of you that are listening may not have ever heard this. But when I started out, you and I, we did things a little bit backwards. We got married, bought a house, had a kid and then I went to college.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, a little backwards, yeah, very backwards. It could have been easier.

Travis Rosinger:

It could have been a lot easier. I went to college for two years. They were amazing. I loved it. It was incredible but kind of a wild story. But the vice president of academic affairs at that time at the college just came up to me one day and said, travis, you need to get out there and be a full-time pastor. And you could just, you can just finish this. You know through virtually or you know through the mail or whatever. And so I took him up on it. I jumped into full-time ministry. I hired at a church, but I never took it as his advice to continue my education while I was working as a pastor.

Dawn Rosinger:

We were really busy with ministry. Actually, and honestly, financially, college costs something too. So there was a couple of reasons that you didn't jump back in right away. Yeah, yeah, and we had another kid and life was going great Got busier.

Travis Rosinger:

And ministry was going great, we were having a blast. But I think about 10 years later is when I had to. I thought, okay, this is my window, but if I don't go back to college to finish my four-year degree, I don't know when I'm going to do it. And it meant that I'm you know, I'm the senior pastor of a church, I'm working a lot of hours and you know we had a bigger house and our kids were getting older. We're like, oh, we need to get this done while they're still somewhat young. And so it was, in that moment, somewhat call me a college dropout. I wasn't, I don't think, because I just hadn't finished it yet. Maybe I was a college pauser or procrastinator, yeah.

Travis Rosinger:

But anyway, it was in that moment that kind of like the boys in the boat, they made a decision to jump on the road to him. It was in that moment I made a decision to, you know, in the middle of a crazy busy life, to go back to college. And so I went back to college, paid the money, you mowed the lawn, I mean it was crazy. And and I knocked out two years of school, got my bachelor's degree, and then I thought to myself, Don, why don't we just keep going? And then I knocked out my master's degree, and so that was a good season.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right Caterpulted us in ministry a little bit and just in life, something that was a huge personal goal, but it also helped us in our career moving forward a little bit yeah.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, but that required change and it required a decision. So just kind of thinking about that a little bit today. I mean, what if? How about you, those of you that are listening? I mean, what if you made a decision to never change? What if I had made a decision to never go back to college?

Travis Rosinger:

And so what if you decided to, you know for your life, as you're listening to this podcast, what if you decided to learn nothing new, to move less, to burn less calories and to stop challenging yourself with new experiences that provide resistance, either physically, mentally, spiritually or emotionally? And here's kind of what I'm getting at. I mean, what if you woke up tomorrow and you just said, hey, I'm going to sit here, right, right here on the couch and do nothing for the rest of my life, and maybe you even move a refrigerator right over next to the couch so you don't even have to get up to go to the refrigerator? I mean, what would happen to your life, down to my life, to those of you that are listening, if we decided not to change, if we made a wrong decision?

Travis Rosinger:

to do nothing. Well, here's what would happen. You would begin to experience a phenomenon that I think very few people talk about. You would start to experience a mental, emotional and spiritual, and really even a physical, wasting away. So what would happen? What if you made a decision to never change anything again, even worse, to do nothing with your life? You would, of course, get weaker in every area of your life.

Travis Rosinger:

Why? Because humans and human bodies were meant to be challenged. We're talking about hitting the gas pedal, giving opportunities to get tired and wore out. We were meant to be, you know, to feel defeated and expend all of our energy, so that, when we get to the end of our day and we lay our head down on the pillow at night, we collapse, we fall asleep. That's the way that God built us. He intended for us to live, and so maybe, as you're listening to this, you probably figured out by now that we're talking about an attribute, one that is not a good quality. It's a thing called atrophy. If you were to suddenly do what I had and mentioned, and decide to do nothing, to change nothing from this moment on in your life, your muscles would atrophy, they would decay, and the gray matter in your brain it would grow and your grip on life and relationships would begin to dissolve it would be disastrous, it would be horrible.

Travis Rosinger:

We don't want to be that way. We don't want you guys to be that way.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know, when you were talking about that, I quickly got a picture in my mind. The first time that I was introduced or I saw atrophy in a person when I first one of my first job shares, I worked in a nursing home. I was a certified nursing assistant.

Travis Rosinger:

You did yeah.

Dawn Rosinger:

And I worked with elderly in geriatrics and some of the wards that were a little bit tougher and people were nearing the end of their life, and after a person doesn't move for a while, their body experiences atrophy where they can't move their fingers or their legs, and so we're rolling them over in bed, we're making sure that their range of motion on their wrists and on their elbows and their arms they're moving, because otherwise they get to a point where they literally just can't move.

Dawn Rosinger:

So that's the physical picture that I had of atrophy, just as a 17-year-old, as I'm working in a nursing home.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and just for the record, you weren't a certified nurse's assistant, you were a certified angel like doing that and helping people like that. That's incredible, but that's like one of the worst forms of atrophy and people end up with bed sores because they're not moving and it's it literally is killing them.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, so that is a physical picture that I get when I think of the word atrophy, just because that's what I saw. Well, what really is atrophy? Well, according to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, atrophy means gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect. So, for example, her autistic skills atrophy from lack of use. So they didn't use the skills, they became underused. They were ineffective.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, Miriam Webster's dictionary says what can atrophy? So here we know what atrophy is. But what can atrophy? Well, from its literal Greek roots, atrophy would mean basically lack of nourishment. Although the English word doesn't usually imply any lack of food, it always refers to a wasting away. Those who have been maybe bedridden for a period of time, like I saw in the nursing home, will notice that their muscles have atrophy. We also use atrophy in a much more general sense, like after being out of work for a few years, you may find your work skills have atrified. Someone who's been living in an isolated life may discover the same thing about his or her social skills. And a democracy can atrify when its citizens cease to pay attention to how they're being. I keep thinking of atrophies in my own life Like.

Dawn Rosinger:

honestly, I was an amazing free throw shooter in basketball but the more I don't practice or I'm at that free throw line. I have to practice more and more because, the skill becomes ineffective. It's not the exact same.

Travis Rosinger:

You're still very good, you still have a great shot. But you're right, it's much more diminished and that word atrophied. When you were reading that Don from Miriam Webster's dictionary I just thought of petrified. Like wood that's supple can bend in the wind, it could be burned, turns into a rock and it becomes kind of useless. You can't build a house with that rock, like you could with the wood.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, if you honestly, if you just think of school, what we learned in chemistry or algebra or trigonometry, any of those skills, if you don't use them constantly, you're gonna forget them. You're not gonna remember what you were taught. Well, why is atrophy a problem? Why should we focus on it and why should we even care if this happens? You know what? At the recording of this episode, this is the beginning of a new year, right?

Dawn Rosinger:

So we're thinking so many people like oh, new year, new me, new you, whatever. What can we do different in this year? So I think that's why we're actually thinking about this a little bit more. Why would it matter if you think to yourself that it's a new year and you don't need to improve anything? It wouldn't matter then no, it wouldn't.

Travis Rosinger:

But be like, I'm gonna sit here on the couch and do nothing, right?

Dawn Rosinger:

yes, but I love that it's a brand new year, because right away I'm like oh man, what can we do different this year?

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and what you just said, Don, it made me think of back when our kids were just little babies and they took their first step. And when they took that first step you remember, Don, they're hanging onto the coffee table and they're wanting to kind of walk across the room and they began to take that first step. That's when they began to experience a powerful new force in their lives, a thing called momentum. And that momentum, that forward movement, it allowed them to grow, to stay lean and to get stronger in a plethora of arenas within our kids' lives. But atrophy in all the important areas of life is really opposite of that. It's really like a slow death. It's not momentum, it's again. It's just sitting and doing nothing. And so it's like kind of finding the fountain of youth, but instead finding the fountain of death. Right, yeah, and then you're drinking gallons upon gallons of its lethal toxins. Atrophy is dangerous and it's opposite of what our little kids experienced when they first took that baby step.

Dawn Rosinger:

I appreciate what Eleanor Roosevelt said. She said unused ability, like unused muscles, will atrophy Like. That's so true. I mean, it's not even just physically. What are we not using If it's unused ability, if it's our talents, our skills, it's physically. What is it that we're not using? It will atrophy eventually.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah. So take, for instance, just a physical loss of momentum and what it can do to your body. Obviously, atrophy can be in all sorts of different areas, but again, physically, just stop moving and keep eating and what will happen? Well, the results are catastrophic. According to Harvard University School of Public Health and this is pretty recent. Here's what they write American obesity rates have hit a plateau. The CDC suggests. They're quoting the CDC and their title is of their article is good news, obesity rates are leveling off. Now Harvard goes on to write.

Travis Rosinger:

But those optimistic headlines tell only part of the story. While, yes, us obesity rates have, overall, stayed steady since 2003, they have more than doubled since 1980. They remain worry-summily high, the highest among all of the income high income countries in the world. So they go on to say a closer look at the US numbers in adults, here's what they say roughly two out of three US adults are overweight or obese, so that's 70%. And then they say one out of three are obese or 36%. And then, lastly, they said if US trends continue unabated, this I thought was crazy, blew my mind. It says if everything stays the same, by 2030, estimates predict that roughly half of all men and women will be obese.

Travis Rosinger:

Why do we bring that up? Well, don't move physically, just keep eating and don't move. And that's where at least the United States society, that's where we're headed. So, again, the beginning of a year is a perfect time to pause just for a brief few moments that's why we're doing it on this episode and to just ask the question what needs to change in me? Not what needs to change in my neighbors or my family members or my coworkers, or even what needs to change in my spouse, but instead it's time to ask what needs to change. And me, where have I lost momentum, even if they're little baby step momentums, but I've stopped taking steps? Or where am I starting to experience atrophy? That's why we've titled this episode Change Nothing, lose Everything, and that's what atrophy does. And that's why we need that powerful force called momentum. We need to keep moving, or get up and start moving. It is really important.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yep, and not only is it important individually, it's important as a couple. It's important in your marriage to make sure that there's certain things in your life that aren't suffering from atrophy.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, so you and I Don recently and maybe we talked about it on our podcast here, but we need to talk about it again we watched a really great series on Netflix and it was called the Secrets of the Blue Zone.

Dawn Rosinger:

Let's do 100.

Travis Rosinger:

Yes, that's what it was called. We'll fill everybody in. What didn't the people in Okinawa, what didn't they have in their living room?

Dawn Rosinger:

It was interesting. There's just five different blue zones around the world and they were studying Okinawa, Japan, and one thing that they don't have is they don't have couches or chairs that they sit on like we do here in America, not quite as often. They always sit on the floor, If you think about even their dining room tables. If you've ever been to another country, or even some Japanese restaurant, sometimes the table's almost on the floor and you sit on the floor on a pillow.

Dawn Rosinger:

It's just fascinating to me that the reason when they started to study these people, their mobility, was incredible.

Travis Rosinger:

Insane.

Dawn Rosinger:

They were so mobile because they're balanced. In order to get up and down off the floor, you have to have good balance, you have to be very flexible, and this helped them. It helped strengthen their core of who they are, their bodies, and so just that strength helped them to live to over 100.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and that might be why they don't wear shoes in their house ever in that culture, because the floor is their furniture. You'd be walking with your shoes on top of their furniture and, yeah, their strong 100-year-olds will be on the floor and they get up like nothing, like they're 15. It's like, how did they do this? Because a couch? Ultimately, no one ever told us this. Yeah, it's comfortable, but it's a crotch.

Dawn Rosinger:

It is yes.

Travis Rosinger:

Doesn't help us.

Dawn Rosinger:

It's funny because now we've been sitting on the floor quite a bit more, I'm like here we'll just sit on the floor. Why do we have to have this chair here? Well, you guys, we believe in the power of momentum and in the dangers of atrophy, so much that we, honestly, are constantly asking ourselves what needs to change in me, constantly evaluating, sometimes almost over-evaluating, but what are the things that need to change in me? Or what things need to change in our marriage? And there's been some changes that we've made just in the past one to two years, and we're big people in the goals, so this is not something that's new to us.

Dawn Rosinger:

But even in the last one to two years, there's a couple of things that I know I've personally changed, probably because last year I had pneumonia. I went to the hospital and they're like you need to drink more water. So I have been drinking all my water in the morning and throughout the day, but before I even pick up a cup of coffee, I'm just trying to hydrate myself, my sleep. I'm a morning person and I'm a night person which can be dangerous.

Dawn Rosinger:

So I feel like maybe I wasn't getting adequate sleep, but I know I need seven to eight hours of sleep a night, so that's been more intentional, consistent daily Bible reading in prayer. I've always spent time reading God's Word in prayer, but consistently, every single day. I don't want to have a day where I miss it, I just want it.

Dawn Rosinger:

And then daily movement. You know me, charles, I get cranky if I'm stuck in the house or if I'm not moving or I've had an exercise. I'm kind of, you know, get a little bit cranky. So just the daily movement, because I know that I need it. I'm always evaluating how full my bucket is, like am I missing certain areas or am I filling up my bucket with what I know I need?

Travis Rosinger:

I know, and I look at the last year and, by the way, you've made some incredible improvements. I look at last year and I'm the same thing. We got sick at the same time and back in January of last year and I was like I need to drink more water as well. So I got this app called Thirst Ick, thirst Icy, and I've used it religiously every single day and, man, I'm drinking like 85 to 120 ounces of pure water a day, not to mention tons of other liquids. I know for me this last year too, just even a deeper spiritual renewal, and I had atrophy to a degree spiritually, and so I just God. God allowed me to come to life and gave me new momentum. I've been studying a foreign language. I've probably talked about this way too much. I know I have with you, don. I am passionate about learning the Swedish language.

Dawn Rosinger:

I'm addicted to it.

Travis Rosinger:

It's fun, but my brain I realized my brain possibly was atrophine, and so I'm like I don't want my brain to turn into a petrified piece of rock. I want it to be, you know, that neuroplasticity and be growing and getting stronger, and so I'm loving it. I learned over 500 words already, but also just even sending a daily text to you, as often as I can Don, to thank God for my different portions of my life, or to thank you, or to thank you know just all that God is doing in me as a person. So those are some daily disciplines I've added in my life for the last year.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, I know this is a saying that you've probably heard us talk about before, but it's so true. We always say when you work on you, you work on too, and there isn't a marriage on the planet that can stay healthy if one or both the people in it individually have allowed themselves to slip into atrophy. Marriage it needs that momentum, just like all the other areas of our life. So how strong is your marriage muscle? Do you lift heavy emotional weights and work through the difficult elements of a marriage relationship on a regular basis? Or maybe have you allowed your emotional muscles to atrophy? How strong is your personal heart? You know your passion for living the life that God has given you. Are you a driven, disciplined person who knows that every little step or action you take builds you into the kind of person that you want to become or that you will become? A few years down the road, god has so much more for you this year and in the coming years, but can you stop and say you know what? Do you really believe that?

Dawn Rosinger:

Do you believe that God has more, or maybe have you lost your wonder, and maybe you're sitting around most days doing nothing except wondering why God put you here.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, those are great points and I would echo that, don, too. You know God has so much more for us in this year, for those of you that are listening. And how do we know that? Well, because Jesus always calls us higher. Jesus didn't come to this earth and learn the skill you know to become a carpenter, to build couches for everyone in the world, so that we wouldn't have to get up off the floor or do anything. No, he came to challenge us, to grow us and to expect us to produce results based on the talents and the gifts that he's given us. And we know that because of, again, this, this parable of the talent, or the coins, the bags of coins.

Travis Rosinger:

Jesus tells this story. He gives out three bags, or three coins, sets of coins, to three different people and two of them end up going and doubling what he had given them. And but then the third person. So many of you know this story. But the third person ends up not doubling that money. He doesn't invest it, he doesn't even put it, you know, on a bank to get it safe interest. He played it safe, he did nothing right, do nothing, lose everything. And so he buried that talent, that bag, in the ground. And here's what Jesus says.

Travis Rosinger:

Jesus says this as he tells this story in verse 26 of Matthew 25. And he says but the master replied you, wicked and lazy servant, if you knew, I had harvested crops I didn't plant and gathered crops I didn't cultivate. Why didn't you deposit my money in the bank? At least I would have gotten some interest on it. Then he ordered take the money from this servant and give it to the one with the 10 bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness. Will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth?

Dawn Rosinger:

Wow, that's crazy. That's seems a little harsh as he was playing it safe, but man that is definitely Jesus has something for all of us and he wants to make sure that we're using our gifts and our talents and not just burying them and not actually going through atrophy.

Travis Rosinger:

I know. I mean, what's the moral of this story? This man gives you know, this businessman gives these three people a momentum. He gives them coins to be able to do something with it in their lives or talents. He goes away on a trip and he comes back and when he comes back, they did. This guy did nothing. This is brutal. I mean, what does Jesus call this guy who buries the talents or the coins? He calls them a wicked lazy servant, because he did nothing and that's why he lost everything. That's why Jesus said take whatever he's been given and take it away from him and give it to the ones that did something with it. Wow, Crazy, Isn't that wild Right?

Dawn Rosinger:

That's honestly, that is crazy. I think of this story very often and I think we've thought about this in the past in our own lives, like we are pastors and that's what we do, you know, with our jobs, our careers, but there's times that we know that we need to serve and we need to do other things outside of the church. God has given us talents and he's given us abilities and we got to make sure that we're giving, you know, everything and using our talents and using our abilities.

Travis Rosinger:

Can't bury them, no.

Dawn Rosinger:

And outside of the church, outside of what we're not getting paid to do, I know, I just even think of just this loving the fight, our podcasts, you know, the conferences and stuff that we speak at. It's because we want to use a gift and a talent we feel like God's given us you know, any wisdom or knowledge that we've learned from marriage to go out and just encourage people with it. But that's what we want to make sure that we're not, you know, burying a gift and talent. So that's why we do even do this every week. We, you know, make sure that we're writing, you know, a podcast, or make sure that we're practicing and we're ready, because we don't want to bury what God's given us.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, we want to do something, we want to make decisions and, again, just continue to take advantage of that momentum, absolutely.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know. So how will you take advantage of the momentum that God has given you this year? Again, we're at the beginning of a year, fresh start to a certain they feel so great. Well, there's so many challenges that we can have, and I just wanted to go through some of several challenges for us all. First is just decide today how you will use the momentum that God has given you. There's momentum in your life. Everybody is born with gifts and talents. How are you going to use that, what God has given you? Make a plan of one simple step, just one that you can take in each of the most important areas of your life. So spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally. How can you make one simple step in each of those areas? I think we need to make sure that we're drowning our excuses in the fountain of death. Let your excuses experience after.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, kill them.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, don't be like well, I can't do this because of that. No, like, don't allow your excuses to win.

Travis Rosinger:

Make a rule no excuses are allowed to live in my home, my mind, my heart, any longer I think it's important to identify habits and attitudes that bring atrophy to you and banish them from your life.

Dawn Rosinger:

Honestly, if you all of a sudden are like, addicted to Netflix and you're just sitting on the couch watching something over and over and over again, maybe you need to get rid of that. Maybe Netflix should not be a part of your life if it's making you physically not move or use your brain or go ahead Unless you're watching the secrets of the blue zones out of lived to 100.

Dawn Rosinger:

That's a great one to watch, but if we did that every single day, that would be a problem and, honestly, the next thing is just turn down the volume of society in your ears and in your mind. Make sure it's God's voice that is the loudest. How can you do that? Yeah, reading God's word, spending time in prayer and listening and making sure that his voice is the loudest voice.

Travis Rosinger:

And I know for me in this last year I just stopped reading the news so much I read it maybe five minutes a day where I used to read it like an hour a day. I've just stopped doing it and it's helped.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right. You know, I think it's so important when we are wanting to hey advance our life in any way or kind of have momentum or get momentum going, is to be around people who are motivated people, people who are using the gifts and the talents and using it for God's glory, but not burying them. So find those people that are living with momentum and begin to follow their balanced example and honestly. Lastly, but probably the most important, is pray and ask God to reveal to you how he wants you to change. So just take the time to stop and to listen and say God, what do you want from me?

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and you know, don, the one example that pops in my mind as we wind down this episode is this the Wright Brothers. These were bicycle mechanics, two brothers in the early 1900s in the United States of America, and they had a dream to use the momentum, the forward movement of a bike, pedaling a bike, to fly, and they did at one point get an airplane to lift off the ground, and it was only for a few seconds, but they were the ones that were able to invent, essentially, an airplane or flight. And so, wow, what a great example. You can do that for your life, for your marriage in 2024.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, you can.

Travis Rosinger:

Get pedaling, get moving and watch your marriage take off and soar, watch your life be used by God in big ways. Don't be the person that buries your talent. You know what we don't want to do nothing and lose everything. We want you to do what God's called you to do, and flourish.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, I just think it's really important to just stop and look at your life and say where have I allowed atrophy to come in? Is it spiritually? Is it physically, relationally? What are some areas where, like man, I'm not moving forward, I'm kind of stuck or I'm just doing nothing. And make sure that we bring those areas back to life. God has so much for you if you're willing to be used.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, it's time to really dig in and look at your soul, look at your heart and make those changes Right.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, we just want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Loving the Fight Marriage Podcast. Remember, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight. We'll see you next time, yeah.