905: Invite God Into Your Marriage

0:00From Astero, Florida, this is a one extraordinary mirrored show. We're being busy as overdone, romantic as fun, and scheduling sex as taking the guesswork out of wondering when you're going to get some. Creators of the six pillars of intimacy, I'm Tony DeLorenzo, your co-host along with my beautiful wife, Alisa. From coast to coast and around the world, thank you for joining us. It's time to talk sex, love, and commitment. Give us a call or text us on the hug hotline at 888-876-566-3, or send us an e-mail to hugs at oneextraordinarymarriage.com. In today's episode, we're talking about spiritual intimacy, specifically praying together, and why something that feels small can have a massive impact on your marriage. And this quote comes from the book of Ecclesiastes that says, a quarter of three strands is not quickly broken. And we're going to be talking about that as it pertains to your spiritual intimacy. But we start every episode with a hug. And a hug is opportunity for us to celebrate your transformation,

1:00to celebrate where you've been intentional in your marriage. And this hug comes from a five-star iTunes review that we received that just starts with, and starts with, I found you during COVID. I honestly cannot remember why or how I found this podcast, just that it was early COVID. I started from the first episode and listened to it every day while I'm working. I knew I needed to work on myself for my relationship. I just wasn't sure how or in what area. I was already getting closer to God, and after listening to this podcast, I started to change just about everything about myself. My wife and I have been married since November 2024, but we've been together since September of 2007. We've had our shares of ups and downs, but things have never been better. I told my wife about the podcast when I found it and her response was, I'm glad you're doing something you feel will help change you, and what you see needs changed. She also made the statement that podcasts were not her thing. I've heard that before. I was okay with that. However, about a month ago, she said she came across the podcast

2:03and started to listen to it herself. I told her if she ever wanted me to listen with her, then to tell me which episode and we could talk about it when we got home. She thanks me for wanting to make things better between us, and is happy with how things have changed, and thanks me for helping her get back to God and helping our kids get to know him as well. Our marriage has had so many improvements individually and together. I recommend the podcast to people all the time. Wow. Yeah, wow. I truly honored him, blessed. And I know I say that a lot, but it does not go unnoticed. The impact that the one extraordinary marriage show has had over the years. And it is stories like these. It is hugs like these that make me, and I think Alisa and our entire team get up every day to go, who's the one? What is where is that couple? Our mission here at One Extra Nair Marriage, impact one marriage every day.

3:04And it's not only the marriage. It's just like we were saying when we were up in Louisiana, and even Ohio where it's generational. There are children watching you, and how you're prioritizing and strengthening your marriage. There are neighbors watching you. There are families, members watching you. It's not just about you. And this is a testament to that. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Absolutely. You know, this episode drops the week of Easter, which for many of us is a deeply spiritual season. It's a reminder that renewal is possible. And we know the one family covers the gamut in terms of where you might be on your faith journey. Whether you feel deeply rooted right now, maybe you're curious about like just some of the challenges that you've been facing in your faith and different ways to go deeper in your faith. Some of you might actually be in marriages

4:04where faith is different. Or you feel just there's a different depth to the spiritual relationship. And you know, what I want to say from the get-go is this conversation is for all of us. Right, it's about being able to address our faith as a couple being able to step into this place, especially in the area of prayer, where we aren't talking about performance, we're talking about connection. And that's been a theme over these last few weeks really about the connection that we've been having. And there are different ways to connect spiritually. For some of you in Antonio and I do this, we attend services together. We've done devotionals together. You might choose to serve together. But one of the things that has come up, especially with a number of the events that we've been at over the last gosh, four, five, six weeks now, is couples praying together. And being in this place where husband and wife

5:05choose to pray, I was going to say play, play and pray together regularly. However, the two of you define that word regularly. And really to get into a conversation about it, because we hear from so many, hey, we want to pray together. But then it's usually followed up with some sort of butt, but we're busy, but we don't know how, but it feels awkward, but but but. And this area of our marriage is so important. I mean, there's a chapter in the six pillars of intimacy, the secret to an extraordinary marriage, all around spiritual intimacy. It's actually chapter eight. And in the book, I wrote that spiritual intimacy can actually be more intimate than sexual intimacy. And this, this comes out especially when the two of you are praying together, when you're allowed this insight into how your spouse is, is connecting with God, what they're praying for, what their burdens are, what they're grateful for.

6:06And so it changes the entire fabric of a marriage when a couple does choose to pray together. Yeah. It's something that Alisa and I have had to learn ourselves. Alisa and I became followers of Jesus in 2000, early 2001, in at Saddleback Church. We came to Christ in different ways, while I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, if you ever seen us live, we've shared that story. And I think we've shared it here before at some point in time, not going to go into it today. And yet, our journey towards prayer has been, I think with many of you have faced, it wasn't shown to us, it wasn't taught to us, it was more like, okay, well, you're here now, go do it. And so we ourselves in this pillar struggled at times. It was easy for us to do a devotional together, it was easy for us to do a small group study together, it was easy for us to attend church together, it was easy for us to serve together. And yet when it came to prayer, this was the area

7:09that we personally just said, we're good, we do it at church together, we do it at small group, study together, we're good. And so it took us some time to get into a rhythm, as we were talking about last week, what are those weekly rhythms to strengthen our marriage? It took us a while to get into a rhythm around our spiritual intimacy and specifically prayer. Absolutely, and we're not alone, right? When we asked you guys on Instagram stories, do you and your spouse pray together regularly? This is the first time in a long time, where it's kind of been pretty even across the board. 24% of you said yes, we do. Excellent. 21% said sometimes. Excellent. 23% said rarely. All right, we got to work on that. And 32% said never. And we definitely hope that those 32% are listening and we can hopefully enlighten those folks to share what this can look like. Well, but I do want to land on 68 or somewhere

8:09between rarely and yes, we do. And I think that's an important thing, because when we get into the, so it's looking at that going, okay, there's at least some measure of that. And then there's the rarely and never, which again, yeah, I'm putting you rarely people in both categories. But coming to this place of saying, okay, why don't we? Right, it's not enough just to answer a question. And we love it. We love that you guys are so involved with us on Instagram stories and you answer our questions. But I think it's important like, why don't we? Right, even if you're thinking about this question right now, as I posed it, like, do we pray together regularly? And you've come up with your answer, but why is your answer what your answer is? And getting into this place of, it does feel awkward. I will tell you, it is awkward the first few times, maybe first many times that the two of you pray together. It feels vulnerable, 100%, especially if you're fostering and bridging that emotional intimacy to it.

9:12I don't like praying out loud. Okay, well, here's the thing. You talk out loud to your spouse. It's a similar kind of deal. And when you speak out loud, like words change when you actually speak them, right? When your spouse gets to hear it, there's a different connection to knowing what's going on up inside your head. Who initiates? Well, that sounds like a sexual intimacy question. But it's also true in spiritual intimacy. My spouse prays alone. I love when there's the silos around spiritual intimacy, because we are reminded in Genesis 2 and throughout from the Old Testament to the New Testament, that marriage is about the two becoming one. And so it is a skill development to become one. So there are steps and skills into that. Becoming one in this area, right? We pray at different times. Okay, voice memo. I'm like, we can solve all of the objections I know, because, guys, I could have written the list of all of the reasons why. Oh, absolutely.

10:13Crazy work hours. Well, we're not emotionally connected. I wish somebody would tell me why it's so hard. But it's getting into this place and recognizing this other key statistic from all of your responses. We ask when you pray together, what happens? And overwhelmingly, 62% of you said, when we pray together, we feel more connected. Let that sink in for a second. There are all of these reasons why it doesn't work. But at the end, when we get there, there is connection. And we are so desperate as couples, as marriages, for more connection. I hear it in coaching sessions. We see it when we are doing the conferences. When we're on the cruise, when we're doing live events, you know, here, there, and everywhere. Ultimately, everything, but I want to feel more connected to my spouse. I want more intimacy, which, if you've ever been to one of our live events, you know that Tony will tell you that intimacy is... Closeness and connection. And so, what do we do in this area?

11:15Because spiritual intimacy is one of those pillars. And even prayer, where we, before you get married, you can be so conditioned like it's yours. It's your faith. Can I say something just real quick here? Absolutely. It just hit me, as you're saying, denominationally here in the United States. And I'm going to just say here in the United States, because Alisa and I have been blessed to go to many different churches. Yes. What you see at your church can be vastly different than the church down the road. Oh, thank you for saying that. And Alisa and I ourselves have been in many different churches and have experienced prayer at different churches and how you see it. The thing I want to say, and this isn't about the denominations. We have a relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our prayer is with Him.

12:16The prayers we have together are the relationship. It's that intimate time, that closeness and connection we have with our heavenly Father. And so whatever you may see at your denomination or at your church, it's okay if you step out in prayer for the two of you. And practice that. Because that is a time that is a service, that is a way for us to learn, to dive into the Bible, to get to understand the Lord's word, the Father's word. And also reading it at home, I believe in that. And yet I just want to say, we have gone to so many different churches where prayer is prevalent and others where it's not and others where it's sort of kind of. And so I just want to remind all of us that what we sit in is different for many of us. Yeah, it's a good point. And for some of us, we've been in highly like a lot of prayer

13:19and then we move somewhere else because we want more Bible-based. So the Bible is taught, but the prayer isn't like it was it somewhere else. And that's okay because we can still pray with our spouse. And remember, this is a moment in time that it's not just us. It is the three of us. It's our heavenly Father. It's your spouse and it's you. Wow, I am so glad that you interrupted me with that because I do think it's important that prayer isn't one-size-fits-all. No. Right? It's not just done one way or another and getting into a place of reconnecting. For some of you starting prayer for the first time, that is a process. And we're going to talk about how to do that after this break. We're back. And we're talking about bringing God back into your marriage through prayer. And you know, you could have a lot of different scenarios. Maybe you guys right now are like, we're good. We just need to maybe pick up our frequency and that type of thing.

14:22Some of you are like, you know, I don't know about this at least because it feels awkward or my spouse is resistant, or I don't know how to start. Or truthfully, we've just never done it consistently. Please start small. Please, please, please start small. This does not have to be a, you've got to preach like a pastor. Like again, this is not performance. This does not have to be all the bees and the owls and all of the words that are in the King James Bible that often trip us up. Start small, right? Maybe you're just starting with a sentence where it's like, God, thank you for today. Or God, help us with whatever the burdens are that the two of you are carrying right now. Or maybe maybe it's just Jesus I need you. You know, we've talked about this. You know, it's interesting that the the hug came from COVID because I had just a medical situation during or a health situation during COVID. And I know we've shared with you guys that at one point in time, Tony looked at me and he's like, at least you need to pray.

15:23And I remember thinking at the time, I'm like, what do you think I've been doing, dude? Like seriously, I have no idea what's going on with me. It's COVID. I'm not going to hospital. Do you think I've not been praying through this? But because of my, like I was having some issues with my speech, I did not say all that. And so he just held my hand and is like, we need to pray. And I said, all I've got is Jesus. And that's all I could say you guys. That's all I could say. And I remember in that moment, like, yes, I remember, I remember when my speech got affected. And then I remember just sitting there holding hands with Tony and saying Jesus. And I felt like this, the shift. And literally it was one word repeated, you guys. This was not like some kind of, you know, 25-part magic formula. It was just holding hands with my husband, being vulnerable in that moment, saying I can't say a whole lot right now. And it was the smallest prayer I have ever prayed in my life. Yeah, one of the things I love to do when we, when we talk about spiritual intimacy is go, let's just pray right now.

16:24Let's pray right now. And just so you all know, for the most part, before Alisa and I start every single one extraordinary marriage episode, we pray. And it's nothing long. It's nothing, in my opinion, it's, it's not about the length. Correct. It's about the heart. And so sometimes all we need to do is grab our spouse's hand in a moment and go, Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your grace, your glory, your peace. For those people in our community, for our family, for my wife. Thank you for her. Thank you for the way she does all that she does to be a light for others. Lord, I thank you for the work that we get to do, the people we get to impact.

17:24But more importantly, let us guide him to you. Let us show him your glory, because you are the great I am. Thank you, Lord. Amen. It's it. And we move on. And for some of you, it may be longer. For some of you, you may be going like, I was never taught how to pray. There you go. There is a formula. Jesus gives it. Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If you need something to guide you, it's right there. The thing is, do not let fear, do not let, and I will say this, do not let and allow the devil to chirp in your ear and say, you don't know how. You do know how. Grab your spouse's hands, start small, start somewhere. That's all.

18:25And also know, again, I said it before, I'm going to say it again, this is not a performance. You are not being graded on how well you pray, right? Which means that sometimes you're going to find yourself at a point in time as you've been praying, you know, is the two of you are talking where you might pause. And there might be silence. It might be very simple. It might be short. There's no, if the two of you are coming together to pray, you pretty much can't get it wrong. If you're doing it together with a heart posture of, this is a way for us to draw closer to one another and draw closer to God. I agree, 1,000 percent. And it's just an opportunity for the two of you to talk to God together to pray over your spouse, to pray for your spouse. That's an incredibly powerful moment of closeness and connection of intimacy. And if you're just getting started out, you might have to, you know, add it to an additional habit. And can I say something to here?

19:26I love what we're going to step into. I love that you keep saying, can I say, honey, this is our podcast. You can say whatever you want. I love what Alisa is going to lean into, anchoring it to an existing habit. And I say this because as a young Christian way back when it was very much conveyed, that prayer was done a certain time of day in a certain way. And that I think hindered Alisa and I for a very long time. And what I have come to realize after reading my Bible over and over and over again, men and women and followers of Jesus prayed when they had to pray. And there are moments when they prayed before a meal or something of that nature. But there are many times when altars were made and prayer was given. And so for myself, I had to break this thought pattern like prayer had to be done first

20:29in the morning. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. I had to be in my Bible and I had to pray. That's just me. If that is you, God bless you, go after it, rock and roll. I honestly read my Bible before I go to bed and I can read chapters because I get so engrossed in it at that time. When it came to prayer, it felt like it had to be at specific times. But once we broke that and just said, hey, we could do it after dinner. We could do it before bed. We could do it before leaving for work. We could do it during a walk and talk. We could do it before a hard conversation. Or even in the middle of a hard conversation where we're when conflict is arising and going hold on. Before we go far any further here, let's just pray. I'll tell you that changes dynamic. Oh, yes, it does. We done it. It's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, we're going to pray right now. We're going to come in agreement and pray. And it doesn't mean that, oh, we're putting this issue in sweeping it under the rug. It's just, no, Lord, you are going to be here with us.

21:34Instead of us trying to figure this out on our own, instead of us trying to muscle one another and go back, we're going to allow you. We know you're already here, but we are going to believe that you are here and you're guiding our thoughts and our conversation. And so attaching your prayer to something like that is huge. Why actually don't you talk about it because you just did? I know. Now we go to the next one. All right. Perfect. I love when you just, you know, I realized here, this is just a total side note, but you asking me if you can say something takes me all the way back to those episodes in like the 60s, 70s, 80s. That's, you know, the number of the episode, not the years, when you would overspeak me or when you would interrupt. And I just realized, and this makes me a little emotional, I just realized that you ask, can I say something so that you can interrupt without overspeak? It's actually a side note, like I'm giving you a hard time because it's our podcast, but I just realized that you do that

22:36out of concern so that you don't just over talk me, over speak me or interrupt. And so I just want to say thank you. I don't know if you notice that, but it hit me. I'm like, why did he do that? I'm like, oh, because he wants to make sure that I am at a stopping's point. So I had nothing to do with spiritual intimacy, but for those of you that have received that. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. For those of you that have listened and you know our journey with interruptions and things like that. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for doing that. The final thing I want to say about praying together with your spouse is when it feels hard, when life feels really hard, when it would be easier to not pray together, because maybe you're emotionally disconnected or you're dealing with a whole lot of things. Pray then. In fact, I would actually say that's probably the time that you absolutely need to pray when it matters the most, that it becomes this place of stepping into, hey, life is really hard right now or we're in a really bad spot. Like Tony said,

23:39praying during conflict is one way to really shift the dynamics. But stepping into this place and remembering, hey, wait, if so many people feel more connected when they pray, is that part of our secret sauce, like we talked about in a previous episode, is prayer? How can prayer? Especially like this week, again, this is Easter week. There's the promise of resurrection and renewal and hope. What if engaging in prayer together was all of that for the two of you? What if that's what was creating the shift towards having more unity, towards having more hope in your marriage, not just like, oh, this is another thing that we have to do. But rather, this is a thing that we get to do as a married couple, as husband and wife stepping into this place of saying, we don't have to be perfect. We just have to be willing to keep doing this together. Yeah. Yeah, this is so good. And I

24:39just want to remind you, 62% of you feel more connected when you pray together. So this week, as you hear this, think about that, 62%. If you haven't done it, we shared how you can. Take a moment this week, as we lean into Easter, the resurrection of our risen Lord Jesus Christ. Think about that and take a moment just you and your spouse and just praise God for that. For what's ahead? For where we get to live? For the times that we are in. And no, that doesn't matter how you do it. He hears you. So go after it. Go do it. Strengthen your spiritual intimacy through prayer this week. You guys, it is always an honor and a blessing to be here with you. We are truly, the one family is just amazing and we can't talk

25:43about you enough. So thank you for all you do to support us, to support others, other marriages, so that they can have their extraordinary marriage. So we can shift society, so we can shift communities knowing that marriage is necessary. It's something that society needs and you're doing it. So thank you for all you do. You guys have yourself a fantastic week. Love you guys.