Have You Flirted with Your Husband Lately?, with Cathe Laurie and Lisa Jacobson

Topics: Marriage & Dating

A warm glance . . . a playful wink . . . a romantic text . . . Lisa Jacobson will write you a permission slip to flirt with your husband as part of pursuing an intimate and Christ-honoring marriage in this episode of Grounded. Plus, Cathe Laurie gives the scoop on a new, Hollywood movie all about revival.

Connect with Cathe

Connect with Lisa

Episode Notes

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Dannah Gresh: Hey, you have you flirted with your husband lately? And really I want to know I do. I'm Dannah Gresh. …

Connect with Cathe

Connect with Lisa

Episode Notes

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Dannah Gresh: Hey, you have you flirted with your husband lately? And really I want to know I do. I'm Dannah Gresh.

Erin Davis: And I'm Erin Davis. You're watching Grounded, which is a weekly podcast videocast from Revive Our Hearts. The short answer, Dannah, is yes, I have. See me winking?

Dannah: Wow. Short answer. I can't wait for the long answer. All right. Friend, do you need some hope and perspective for your marriage romance? Are you looking for ways to forge intimacy with your husband both emotionally and physically? Do you want to be empowered to pursue your man romantically? Or maybe just creatively push reset on your love life?

Maybe light it up girls with little candles and break out the chocolates? You're in the right place today? Our guest is Lisa Jacobson. She's co-written a booklet called The Flirtation Experiment. It is el fuego.

Erin: Ooh, you know it's steamy when you start speaking other languages. And our episode is gonna be a little el fuego also. Today we are taking you to school for flirting 101. No, you have not landed on the wrong videocast, you are not in the wrong place. This is still Grounded from Revive Our Hearts. But we want you to explore the fact that flirting can look like a lot of different things.

It could look like catching somebody's eye across the room. It can look like sending a flirting text complete with emojis, maybe. It can look like telling a good joke and laughing like school kids together. We have a word in the Davis household we use. When somebody picks up some extra chores around the house. We call it chore play. Because you know what? Sometimes it is romantic when your man does the dishes, so it could just be hearing your husband's heart and responding.

In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Jason wasn't even talking to me. We were out with friends, and he was talking about me. He wasn't throwing me under the bus; he wasn't being insulting. He said, “Erin is always going. She's always moving. She's always doing stuff. She never just sits down on the couch,” and I heard it. My first instinct was to get defensive because I'm not just, you know, twiddling my thumbs. I'm doing the dishes, I'm doing the laundry, I'm cleaning the bathrooms, all those things.

But his heart was I want my woman to just sit by my side sometimes. So yeah, in addition to your play, I spent some time this week . . . You can just sit next to him watching the shows that he likes. Flirting can look like that.

Dannah: Chore play, oh.

Erin: I can’t believe I confessed that.

Dannah: You have changed my vocabulary, Erin Davis.

Well, you know what? I was researching this, and I really do think flirting matters. In fact, when we get to grounded in God's Word, I'm going to share a few biblical examples of flirting, and how it could be a part of protecting the sexual integrity of your marriage. Is it okay if I share a little bit of what I've researched now?

Erin: I know you just love this topic, we could just set you loose.

Dannah: Sneak peek. One study found that flirting was more about friendship than sex. It increased confidence in the flirted partner. How would you like to give that to your man for Valentine's Day?

Erin: Confidence, he needs it.

Dannah: Yeah. Okay. It also preserves emotional intimacy. And hear me now, flirting reduces tension and fighting.

Erin: Hmm, come on, we're talking about some really important ways to protect your marriage here on Grounded. If you have a friend who needs that conflict resolution strategy, go ahead and share the podcast with her. Listen, you do your friends who are married, your friends who aren't married, we need to know these ways to interact, maybe with our significant other, but this really is a show for married women.

You know, our short course and flirting is going to be biblical. And it's going to be more fun than anything else you can do to reduce conflict. So, share the episode.

And if that's not enough, we've got an amazing good news segment for you today. Portia, I have a prediction that you know how to flirt. But I'll let you talk about good news first, who's our special guest for good news this morning?

Portia Collins: So I'm over here cracking up, and I definitely want to get in on the Spanish. So, the way I feel about today's episode, I guess I could sum that up with muy caliente.

Erin: Ooo, very spicy.

09:44 - Good News (Cathe Laurie)

Portia: Very spicy. So well, this is to talk about power couples. I've got some help to share good news this morning. I'm so excited about that. Cathe Laurie is with us. She’s the wife of Greg Laurie. He's the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship. And she's also a featured speaker for Harvest Crusades and Harvest America Evangelistic Outreaches.

She became a Christian during the Jesus movement in 1970. A lot of people are about to find out what God did through that movie and movement. I will let her tell you why. Cathe, come on in here. Help me out. Welcome to Grounded.

Cathe Laurie: Thanks, Portia. It's my pleasure and privilege to talk about a time in my life that is going to be depicted in a full-blown Hollywood feature film called Jesus Revolution.

Greg wrote about it with an amazing co-author, Ellen Vaughn, and a book called Jesus Revolution about five years ago. It tells the story of the revival that happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the world was about as divided as we are today. People were despairing about what was happening to young people. Greg and I were both just in the later years of junior high. Greg was in high school when the whole hippie movement just swept the country. We were both caught in that net. We were following with the crowd and the Beatles and Timothy Leary and the tune in, turn on, drop out crowd. We were headed for the cliff, really both of us were.

Our upbringings were completely different. Greg was raised in a home with a mom that had been been married seven times, never been to church, never even really was taught anything about the Scriptures or the Bible. I, on the other hand, was raised in a very strict religious home. Church on Sunday was, I mean, unless you were deathly ill or traveling in the middle of the ocean or on an airplane somewhere, you did not miss church. I was taught prayers to pray, and I understood the basic tenants of the faith, but at the same time never really experienced anything of God, myself. I watched this with my mom and with my family, that church was just something we did. Then the rest of the week, there was nothing.

And when the Beatles came along and started talking to us and telling us what they said in their songs—that there was something more, there was a deeper way of enlightenment, and a way to live in peace and joy. And you have to remember the Vietnam War and the racial unrest and the assassination of two beloved political figures—JFK and his brother, Bobby and Martin Luther King. It was a very, very difficult time to be growing up in America.

I was raised overseas, in Southeast Asia, and was totally enamored with everything I was reading that was going on in San Francisco and the cover of LIFE magazine showing all these hippies and the music was sweeping us. My two older sisters and I went right with the crowd. We just thought that this looks amazing. You just dove deep into it. We were moving back to the US. My dad quit his job in Southeast Asia. We moved back to Southern California, right at the time when the world was on fire, really.

The hippies thought they had the answer. And yet, we were finding out there was a lot of emptiness and sadness, even there. And so, at that very moment, God stepped in. I cannot explain how revivals happen. Nobody organizes them, in a sense, but somebody is praying for them. But I tell you, my parents were absolutely despairing with their three older daughters and what was happening. They saw the disconnect, and all of that, and someone came and shared the gospel with us. They look like us. They look like hippies; we thought they were cool. And then they told us that what they found was a relationship with Jesus Christ, that blew my mind.

Portia: Amen that is super encouraging. Well, first of all, I am the young young kid on the block around here on Grounded. I wouldn't even been alive in the 1970s. So, I'm super grateful for that layout. That was super enlightening for me. You began to talk a little bit about revival, that's something that we talk about a lot here on Grounded. Of course, our ministry is called Revive Our Hearts. We long to see revival. We love it. You've clearly experienced that. And so I guess the question here is, do we still need revival today? I know what you're gonna say, but I want to hear your answer.

Cathe: Yeah, the short answer is absolutely, yes. We need revival. We need revival in every generation. But I feel like what we're seeing right now is the unraveling of culture, unraveling of America. In many ways, we are politically divided. We are seeing violence, we are seeing disconnection between the use of America, aided by all the social media and cell phones and connections that they're finding, apart from the norms that we grew up with, that we were accustomed to. But at the same time, there are so many parallels to what I am seeing right now and what happened to us in the late 1960s.

This promise that we could do something differently—counter-cultural revolt, overthrow all the established norms, and do it differently. And what I see is happening right now is we're seeing the aftermath of that. What was the sexual revolution of the 1960s has come to full bloom. Today, there are four or five dozen different gender options that are available, you can designate your own preference on Facebook, or however you want to choose to identify yourself. The celebration of diversity and tolerance seems to have led to a questioning. Is there any kind of absolute truth? Are there any strict boundaries anywhere? Can we just make up the rules ourselves and just tolerate anything and anyone except someone who would say there is absolute truth, there's timelines for everyone except for that.

But at the same time, hate speech, the hatred, the violence, the things we're seeing, it's so close to what we ended. And also the sense that parents and even the church is despairing over what they're witnessing. And unfortunately, many have opted out for a political answer. We know the answer is not politics, we can never legislate morality. We celebrate like crazy the overturn of Roe v. Wade. But if the hearts of young people, like my heart, is set to do what I wanted to do, they're gonna find a way to break God's commandments and break God's laws.

We can't impose it from the outside. My father gave me all kinds of government literature that explained why drugs were dangerous, what one drug might lead to, and another drug, and you might end up just really wrecking your life and dying—which my best friend in high school, actually in junior high, before I became a Christian, she died of a drug overdose, probably at the age of 18.

And so, we see the aftermath of all of that. Yet we know and we hope and we pray that God will break through, that He will break through somehow. What that would look like today? I think any of us who are praying for revival better fasten our seatbelts, because revival can be scary. It can be exhilarating. It can be messy. It is certainly passionate. It is always surprising. God works in ways that we would never expect.

I think the movie Jesus Revolution shows that from the perspective of the older pastor, Pastor Chuck Smith in Southern California. He was despairing of what he was seeing with the riots in the Levin's and the hippie movement, and the drug taking, and all the things that were going on at the time, and he just thought they all needed to cut their hair and get a job.

But God brought a hippie into his life and into his home—a hippie who had truly been converted. He opened his doors to allow Lonnie Frisbee an opportunity to preach in his church. And Lonnie was like we were. I went to Calvary Chapel. Not because I wanted to hear the gospel, not because I wanted to see an older pastor tell me about how bad I was, and the things I was doing that were wrong. I wanted to see this hippie preacher who said he had an answer. And so, when I heard it was the answer was Jesus,that's what blew my mind because having been raised in the church, I thought, Jesus might have been a cool guy. I liked him. I liked what he stood for. I had a poster on my wall in my bedroom. It was a “wanted” picture with a black and white painting of the face of Christ, wanted for sedition, wanted for uprising, wanted for this. So that, you know, I thought Jesus was cool.

But what I saw in church was not at all engaging for me. I wanted a spiritual connection to something beyond myself. All I saw were rules and rituals and going through the motions. And when Lonnie stood up and talked about a personal relationship with Jesus, no one ever told me that that was a possibility. Why did nobody in church ever explain or at least in a way that I could understand that Jesus and Christianity were not a religion, it was a relationship?

When I heard that, about me and all the drug taking in the world, and all the LSD that I had experimented with was a momentary experience. But it didn't last. But when he started talking about God and Jesus, I was like, “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Portia: It changed your life.

Cathe: Oh, it changed my life. Along with that was just not an embracing of spirituality or another philosophy. What came with that was genuine repentance and change.

Portia: Amen.

Cathe: Everything that I was doing, I remember the next day after I heard the gospel, and prayed to receive Christ. It was a simple, heartfelt prayer. Jesus came into my life. I'm sorry for my sins. But the next morning when I woke up to go to school, I actually thought to myself, God cares what I'm going to put on today. He's right here. He's with me. He cares what I'm going to do today and who I'm going to talk to today, and what I’m going to wear. Everything changed. My parents were amazed at the difference, at the difference in my life.

Portia: And what Jesus did it

Cathe: All the disrespect, and all talking back and all the sneaking out at night and all the height and my hiding of my drugs and all of that, all of a sudden,

Portia: Amen, amen.

Cathe: All of that changed for me. That was a power of the Holy Spirit. I think they were hoping that I would just get my life cleaned up and marry some guy and get a job and live just that classic 1950s lifestyle of being a good mom and a good wife. I think they were just hoping for that, but what they got was something totally different.

And it was hard for them to embrace me as a Christian who still dressed like a hippie, still wanted to sit in a circle with my legs crossed and sing songs and do it differently than they did, but the the heart was the same. They did embrace all that God had done in my life and were celebrating it with me. But it took a little time for the Church to open their eyes to see that revival might look a little different and welcoming outsiders in ways that they hadn't before.

Portia: Mm hmm. Well, you've got me super excited. I'm gonna land to plane here. But I do want to ask, where can people see the movie?

Cathe: Oh yeah. Well, you can find out really easily by going to the website, JesusRevolution.movie. And all you do is type in a little box where you're living, and they will show you all the themes where it's showing and what's amazing. Portia I just have to say this to me is a sign that God’s on the move. When Lionsgate Studio . . . full blown Hollywood . . . we're talking big movie studio.

Portia: Big deal, big deal.

Cathe: . . . is willing to put tens of millions of dollars and they have invested the best cameras and all of that. All that money, a studio that you know Hollywood Studios aren't really known for making movies about Jesus. And in this movie, there is the gospel, that Jesus Christ died for your sins, and a sinner’s prayer. It's telling the story. This is okay.

So, JesusRevolution.movie, find out where it's showing in your area. It releases everywhere, February 24 is the major at least. On February 22, another miracle, Lionsgate has allowed Greg to add on to the tail of that movie, a special prerelease where he's going to preach the gospel to the movie theater audience with a seven-minute gospel message at the end of the movie, because we're telling the story.

But we want people to realize the story can continue in their lives, and that connection with God is available today, just as it was to us. And that is on February 22. So, if you look for tickets, look for February 22. Bring a friend who doesn't know Jesus, and you pray for revival that this story will spark another awakening.

Portia: I will definitely be praying. I'm super excited. I’vw got the biggest grin because I just love to hear it. Thank you so much for being with us. One more bonus question. Do you flirt with your husband?

Cathe: Okay, Greg and I will be celebrating on Wednesday, February 2, which this is a little prerecorded. We're going to celebrate 49 years of marriage. So, here's my answer. Yes.

Portia: Good.

Cathe: But it does look differently than it did when we were 17 years old. I was engaged at 17 and the way we connected then, and the way we expressed our affection then, and the way we express our affection now . . . there's all these stages to married life. They're all good. Jesus's there in the midst of it. I adore him and love him as much today as I did that day. It's deeper. It's quieter. It's richer. And friendship is really at the center. And Jesus is right there in-between the two of us. You'll see that in the film. What held us together in the beginning, holds us together today. And that is God first in our lives.

Portia: Yes. Well thank you so much for being with us today, Cathe. It was a joy to talk to you and to have you be our good news story. So, thank you, Great grace and peace to you.

Cathe: Thank you. You too.

Erin: I wish we could run out of theater and have a Grounded viewing of that.

Portia: Yes.

Erin: Wouldn't that be amazing? You’re just giving good news left and right. Thanks for that Portia.

27:19 - Grounded with God's People (Lisa Jacobson)

It is time to get grounded with God's people. Is it possible that the best marriage has to offer can grow rather than fade after you say I do? Lisa Jacobson is our guest. She says the answer's yes. She's been married more than 25 years. We're going to find out her secret. Welcome to Grounded Lisa.

Lisa Jacobson: Thank you so much.

Erin: I'm going to ask you to be our second good news correspondent for this episode. What's the best you can tell us about Christian marriage today? Is there good news about Christian marriages today?

Lisa: There is. I know that marriage is hard. I know that the times we're living in are really challenging. But I truly believe and experience a loving, joyful marriage, even through the hard things. I know lots of people are also experiencing that.

Erin: Yep, I agree. We were praying before this episode, as we always do, and reflecting on the fact that Satan guns for Christian marriages, because they can be such a light in the world. But there are Christian marriages thriving.

I want to tell a little story to set up this next question. My husband's name is Jason. We were engaged. So I was, I don't know 19. He was 23, somewhere in that window. We were sitting at a Pizza Hut with all these Christian married couples. They were all talking about how hard marriage is, and what a challenge it is, and what a struggle it is. I have a flair for the dramatic. I got up and walked out. Because it seems like Christians are the ones that talk about hard marriage the most. Why is that our narrative, you think? As Christian couples, why do we talk about how hard it is so often?

Lisa: Well, I think that we think it's going to be easy. I think we think, “Okay, we're both assumably we're both Christians and with this should be the easy part. And all the hard part is out there, maybe parenting, or in the church, or in our community.” When actually marriage does require constant investment, but it can be a good investment too. And that's the part, we neglect those things that we would know to do.

Let's just say parenting, like we know with our kids, we need to spend time with them, that we need to touch them gently. We need to hug them. We need to talk with them. We need to listen. Like we know those things, and we try to do those things. But with our marriage, it often ends up being the last thing that we pour into.

Erin: It's true. You and Felicia Masonheimer, by the way, Felicia is coming on Grounded in March, you wrote a book called The Flirtation Experiment, which I think that title might have just made some of our Christian friends watching blush. And so, I want to keep that going. Let's just deepen the red in their cheeks because the description of that book says “the flirtation experiment includes the frisky side of marriage, but more than just a good rub, by degrees.” Each chapter takes you to a deeper place covering themes.

Every beautiful marriage has in common covenant healing and hope so help us take that leap from being open to maybe flirting with her husband, to some of those really deep things that all marriages wrestle with. Is that putting a bandaid on a gaping wound? How does it help?

Lisa: It can help because more than just like that flirting you might have done in high school. You know, it's not just giggling, although there can be some giggling, but it's that communicating. “I think you're special. I'm attracted to you. I see things in you that nobody else in this room can see.” It's a very powerful way of communicating. So, when Felicia called me and she said, “Hey, I've been doing this rotation experiment.” She has set out 30 flirtations that she was going to secretly do with her husband, Josh. They've been married about seven years at the time. She said, “The results have been amazing. We're just closer. We're working through things better. And we're enjoying each other more.”

I just started laughing. I said, “Oh, yeah, totally. It's like my secret sauce to where we've been married for 30 years.” And if someone did ask if there was a secret, you know, I would almost say that would be it that willingness to be not just light and silly, but really touching, looking into your eyes, being kind, like all of those things communicate really powerfully.

So, when you are working through the hard things, there's this wonderful grounding that you have to work together.

Erin: Hmm, that's so good. I want to love my husband. Well, Jason and I've been married 21 years. He's my very best friend. I'm gonna say something that shouldn't be counter-cultural. But in this day and age, it is. Men and women are different. You could probably fit what I understand about men in a thimble, even after all these years, so help us. What's flirting to me is flowers. It's doing the dishes. It's telling me I'm beautiful. Those scenes don't seem to translate for him. So how do we flirt with our men in ways that are meaningful to him?

Lisa: Well, I think that's part of the fun. She was trying to figure out what he enjoys, what just turns him on. That is a part of it. But really speaks to his heart, speaks to his masculinity.

And I think about just for example, when I was younger and I had all my kids at home, and my husband is home late for work. And so, I was cooking dinner. He came in and I was just frustrated, annoyed with him because it was late. I was tired and all the things that you think about, and he came up behind me, and he slipped his arms around my waist, and which is his way of saying, “Sorry, I'm late.”

But I just shrugged him off, because I'm just like, “I'm not gonna give you anything now.” And while I was sauteing the onions, I just had this thought of, what did I just do? Like, all these years, this is exactly what I wanted: a big, strong, handsome man to put his arms around my waist. And here, I am telling him to get away, basically. And I thought, what if I did it differently, and I just turned the stove off, and I looked around, and I just wrapped my arms around his neck, and I kind of leaned into him big time. It caught him off guard for a second, but then got a little heated, and my kids are all just looking going, “What's up with Mom and Dad?”

Erin: Some eyes were rolling I'm gonna predict.

Lisa: But it was so powerful. It just set the tone for the rest of the evening. I'm not saying that it solves everything. I never want to communicate that. It's not what I'm saying. But I am saying like, say later in the evening, we do have some hard things to talk about—maybe some financial decisions or work struggles or a problem with the child. But we had this moment of remembering that, “Hey, we love each other. We're attracted to one another, and we're working together.” It lays this secret sauce down. Like I say just, “You can work through the things better.” So, you're not always just, “Alright, next thing, what are we gonna work through? What do we need to do next?” Because you get so you're just co-parenting and cohabitating. When really God does want for us, joy. He wants a little fire. He wants those special things for you.

Erin: In case you missed it, Lisa said they are the parents of eight children and still find time to flirt.

I've had a similar experience here recently, because of what Jason said to my friends about me always being busy. I'm a woman in constant motion. When I hear him come in, I stop what I'm doing, which takes a little bit of overriding of my brain for me, like, “Erin, stop sauteing the onions or doing whatever you're doing and turn and go towards him.”

My children have started falling, my husband works from home. So, we don't have that big daddy's home moment. But we've started creating it, and it makes a big difference. Emotional banking is what you're talking about. It's about talking about making deposits in each other's hearts so that when there are withdraws, and there will be withdraws, there's some buffer.

So, you say that the Bible invites women to be proactive in our marriages. I'm not sure that's the message we hear very often. In fact, I think we might assume it's the opposite, that we need to let him initiate everything. So, take us to some principles in God's Word that would encourage women to love their man in this kind of way.

Lisa: Yeah, I think there is this sense of well, because he's to be our spiritual leader, because he's supposed to be leading our home, that means he has to do everything. I don't know about you, I could sit around for a long time before anything happened, just because he's got a lot going on. It is not because he doesn't love me. He doesn't care. But he just can't do everything.

And so, when I started initiating things like, “Hey, I found a babysitter for Friday night. And there's this new type place I thought we could go.” He was thrilled. Like he was just like I'm so glad we're doing this. It actually took some of it off his shoulders that feeling like I have to Mr. Wonderful everywhere I turn.

I know what it is I want. I'm not going to make him guess that I'm really thinking about the new Thai restaurant, because I expect him to figure that out. Because that's not how his brain is wired. But he's happy to come along. You still get full points for coming along and having a good attitude.

Erin: Yeah, I think that's so common. We want our husbands to read our minds about things which they cannot do. And when they don't, they have failed some tests that they didn't even know that they were taking.

Jason and I had a similar conversation the other day. I think we hear those verses about like better to live on the corner of your roof than with a nagging wife. There was something I'd asked him about a couple times and he didn't execute. I said, “I don't like having to ask you.” He said, “I need you to be my partner. I have a lot going on. I can't remember it all.” It was really liberating for me to go like, “Okay, it's not nagging when I asked him to do something more than once if my attitude is right.” So, I love that.

You wrote an awesome book, 100 Words of Affirmation Your Husband Needs to Hear which I was just researching on Amazon and put it in my cart. Then you also have 100 Words of Affirmation Your Son Needs to Hear, which we all know I have four sons.

So, I don't think men and women speak the same language. Give us some tools, some words for how to affirm our husbands and our sons, our male coworkers, our dad, or male friends, maybe what are some ways to affirm the men in our life that speak their language?

Lisa: Words are so powerful, and a lot of times I even hear women say that, “Oh, well, my husband's not really a words guy.” And I'm sure that might be true. But I still have not met a man yet that doesn't appreciate being told and hearing that, “I think you're a great guy. I see this in you. I love the way you do this. Thank you for that.” And no matter what, it still fills their heart and their mind with, “I am not a loser. I am doing something right.”

Because so many men, I think, more than ever feel like they're just just struggling or even failing on so many fronts. Another example I can give on this is, as I was working on my words of affirmation, because that's not my natural tendency. It's something I've purposed to grow in.

So, I walked by my husband one day, and I said, you are so handsome. And, of course, he knows he's handsome. He's super good looking. It's obvious. Like, you know, everybody knows that. And he said, “What did you just say?” I said, “You're handsome. You know?” He goes, “Oh, that's funny. I've never felt that.”

Then he proceeded to tell me that when he was a kid, he felt like he was so ugly, that he went through his family photo album. He literally tore out the picture of himself in each family. But I'm looking at this photo album, and you can see his whole family is all lined up. And then there's this ragged edge where he had torn, who thought he was ugly.

I had never heard that story. I never would have imagined that. And I thought, “He actually needs to hear that. Not just a light fluffy thing. But genuinely, I think you're good looking. I like the way you appear.” And the words are powerful. You never know which words are going to really heal a wound, or build someone up when you need to know that.

Erin: It's so true. One of the phrases you give us in the book is, “I'm so glad I married you.” I said that to Jason this weekend. He did same thing, kind of stopped in his tracks and said, “Thank you for telling me that.” We've been married two decades, that took half a second. But it spoke to some place of worry or fear in his heart, so we can do it, ladies.

I know my Grounded audience. I know who's listening. I know there's someone listening. And she's married to a man who is very hard to love. Maybe he's not a follower of Jesus at all. Maybe he's hard hearted. There's a spectrum of what that man could be like. Can she make a difference in her own marriage when her husband isn't at all interested in growing or changing?

Lisa: I think this power of words can be applied everywhere. And I think that I understand that difficult season or challenge you would have. And I think when you go to the Lord and in the morning to say, “Lord, give me one kind thing in the building up that I can say to my husband today,” and look for that one thing. You really never know how God's going to use that.

Because a lot of times, men that are hard or mean or grumpy, is because they feel terrible about themselves. And so sometimes those words over time can really can make a difference or that soft touch. That kind gesture can speak volumes even louder than all the lectures or the “Why aren't you, or I wish you were.” But just that, “Hey, I see this in you, and hope that the Lord will take that little spark and build it into it more of a flame.

Erin: It's having his coffee ready, just like he likes it, as he heads out the door. It's a note on the bathroom mirror. It can look like a million different things.

I remember at one point Jason and I were in a fight, and I cried out in prayer to the Lord, “I'm in a difficult marriage, even though I'm in a wonderful marriage.” And what dropped into my heart by the Holy Spirit is, “Me too.” I mean, we are married to Christ. We are His Bride, and we challenge Him every day and can be stubborn and hard hearted. So you can model His responsiveness to us.

Okay, ladies, the flirtation experiment begins today, and we want to hear about it as this month progresses. You've got your assignment: reach toward your husband. Lisa, thanks for being with us. What a great conversation.

Lisa: Thank you so much.

Erin: I want to know where people can learn more about you before you hang up. We've written a whole lot of marriage strengthening resources, most of which I bought, so you've got Loving Your Husband Well, which is a devotional. It's on my can't wait to read shelf. 100 Words of Affirmation for Your Husband and Son. And of course, there's The Flirtation Experiment. Where can ladies find your resources?

Lisa: Okay, you can find me at Club31Women.com. I'm also on Instagram, all those usual places. You can find all of those books on Amazon or CBD, any of those book places. And what I especially love to communicate are those little practical ways that you can apply those big concepts. Because a lot of times, I think we know we need to love. We know we need to communicate. we know we need to work through, but you just don't know what it looks like on a Tuesday morning.

And so, what I enjoy doing is just giving those little things one thing I can do today to communicate my love to my husband, to my children. That's what resources are for.

Erin: I love it. You're already strengthened the Davis marriage. There's going to be some flirting going on this February. So, thank you so much for being on Grounded, Lisa.

Lisa: Thanks again for having me.

Erin: Here are some words that the man in your life: husband, brother, friend's son, needs to hear these words from you, “I believe in you.” I had a conversation with Robert Wolgemuth about how to bring out the best in my man on a previous Grounded episode, which will drunk drop the link to, and the little men in my life. He shared how powerful a woman's words can be.

I want you to watch this one-minute clip. It's loaded with truth.

43:25 - Video Clip (Robert Wolgemuth)

Robert, one of my favorite memories of you, we were at your place, and we went out on your boat. You let each one of my four boys drive the boat. Now, I think you were secretly driving. I don't think they were actually driving. But they rose to that occasion that they were given just a little, you know, they got to take the wheel.

So, take it aside from wives. We're not everybody who's watching is married. Many of us are moms or grandmas. How do we raise up that goodness in our children?

Robert Wolgemuth: That's a great example. Can I drive the boat better than your boys? Yeah, probably. Do I have more experience? Yeah, no doubt. What am I saying to them by moving out of my seat, having them sit down, take the wheel. And I really did let them drive. Of course, a boat, there's less immediate danger than like when you’re going down the highway at 70 miles an hour. But what I'm saying to them is, “I respect you. I trust you. I think you'll do a great job at this.”

And a young boy or husband will rise to that occasion. If you set the bar high and say, “I believe in you. I know you can do this,” then he will. That. That's an incredible opportunity for a woman to help her husband, the man in her life, her sons or grandsons to step up and be the man that he really would love to be.

45:12 - Grounded in God's Word

Dannah: That is so good. I love that word picture. Robert always gives me so much to think about.

You know, my heart is stirred. Because Erin asked a few moments ago, “Can a wife influence her husband if he's not on board with this marriage in the way that he needs to be? Can she flirt with him and speak life into him and give him the words that tell him he is who God wants them to be?”

And yes, this Bible verse welled up in my heart. I got to share it. It's a bonus sharing as we get grounded in God's Word here. But you've probably heard of 1 Peter 3 where it says, “In the same way, wives you must accept the authority of your husband, then even if some refuse to obey the good news, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over you.”

You possess that power through Jesus Christ. You possess the power to influence your husband and change him without a word. Maybe it's a glance, maybe it's an encouragement, maybe it's a hug. What kind of change can we influence in our husband's spiritual lives if we get on board with honoring and respecting them?

And maybe, just maybe, that will include a little bit of flirting, although I do think that we define it a little bit differently here at Grounded, so let's dive in. Many people think flirting, the end goal is sex? Well, we don't really think that, although it does maybe involve sex. Sexual integrity is not just avoiding sex outside of the marriage covenant. I want to say that it also includes enjoying healthy sex within it. Dr. Julie Slattery says there are two commitments every Christian must make to live in sexual integrity.

Sidenote, we're gonna have Julie Slattery on a future episode in two weeks. So, you've got to be here for that, because I've got to tell you, Erin and I woke up this morning and we're just like, hey, we got Dr. Julie Slattery. You want to jump on in the studio with her and see. We had this great conversation. She answered some of the craziest, hardest questions we have about sex. Don't miss that program two weeks from today.

Dr. Julie Slattery says there are two commitments that you need to make to live in sexual integrity commitment. Number one, we don't engage in sex outside of marriage. This commitment to be sexually faithful, it certainly includes not having sex with anyone else. But the Bible also references other kinds of infidelity that could be harmful to your relationship with God, and with your husband, such as impurity and lustful passions. That includes things like pornography and erotica or obscenity and coarse joking.

Ephesians 5:3 says no to that. Committing to faithfulness in marriage means that all sexual thoughts, desires, and impulses should drive you to your husband, drive you to your marriage bed, or be shut down.

But here's another commitment that's not often talked about. Number two, we make sexual intimacy a priority within marriage. Ah, did you hear that sexual intimacy should be a priority to you.

We really fall short of aligning our sexual and our spiritual lives if all we do is focus our sexual ethic on what we should not do. God's rules about sex are not one big thou shalt not. A biblical sexual ethic also takes care to observe what God instructs we should do. And Scripture speaks to mutually satisfying and frequent sexual pleasure between a husband and wife.

Check out passages like Proverbs 5:18 and 19, or the entire book of Song of Solomon, a little bit steamy, they celebrate the gift of marital sexual pleasure. And so should we.

Let's check out this verse from 1 Corinthians 7, verse 3; this is the New Living Translation. It says, “The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs.”

So, we're called as husbands and wives to minister to one another sexually. This takes time and commitment. In fact, in the Old Testament, a newly married man was not to go to war or do business for a whole year. So, he could as Deuteronomy 24:5 says, “Bring happiness to the wife he has married.”

Now, I want to ask you, do you think that what made her happy in her first year of marriage was was helping her with the dishes? If you're Erin Davis, chore play, it could it could involve the dishes. I don't know why she didn't think that would make people blush.

Listen, God instructed men to please their wives sexually. And if you're married, sexual intimacy is a priority and a pleasure for you. So how does all that tie into flirting? Well, no doubt someone out there has been playing the church lady as you listen to this program. Somebody's poo-pooing it. They're like, where in the Bible, does it say flirting is okay? Okay. There are lots of examples in the Bible.

Take this one. I'm going to just read this one to you because you might not believe it if I don't read it to you and you hear it for yourself. It's in Song of Solomon, and it says, “Let me kiss him with the kisses of his mouth. For love is better than wine.” That's the woman saying that. Let him kiss me. She is pursuing him.

How about another one? This one's for the single girls out there. What about Ruth? She went to Boaz and covered his feet with her garment and Ruth chapter 3. Why? Well, she wanted that man to know her intentions. She wanted him to marry her. We don't really get that because the garment feet covering thing is not a thing in our culture, but it was very flirtatious, girls.

Consider Rebecca and Isaac, in Genesis 26:8 they were caught laughing together. Somehow, I think maybe there was more to it. Maybe it was the beginning of two lovers giggling, frolicking, flirting, sending signals of love. Here's the thing, though it may lead to sex, flirting is really about intimacy, friendship, making the other person feel desired, wanted, telling them that they're enough and that you're available heart, mind, and soul, not just body.

So, I'm asking you again, have you flirted with your husband lately? Remember when I asked that at the beginning of the program?

You might be wondering what constitutes flirting, and what constitutes flirting for me may be different than what constitutes flirting for you.

Last Sunday, my man played with my hair during church, oh, and I liked it. It reminded me of the way he did it way back in the day when we were kids in college. He’d twirl my hair in chapel at Cedarville University. I liked it then too, by the way.

Now, God's been speaking to my heart lately, inviting me to be the one that flirts with Bob in ways that meet his needs. And it's not twirling his hair, that doesn't do it for my man. I've been noticing and this is gonna sound weird, I think. But he likes it when I work beside him. When I pick up a snow shovel or show up in a meeting beside him, when I help him, that’s sexy. His heart lights up.

He also likes it when I play with them. In case you don't know what this is, it's a Philadelphia football team, as in the Eagles ball cap. I got us matching Eagles ball caps because my man's team is going to the Super Bowl.

Now Christian sister, I don't like football. I don't care much about football. But I love doing stuff that makes my man happy. And participating in this part of his world of play makes him happy. It's like flirting.

So, I'm encouraging you, don't forget to play with your husband, if that's what he likes. But if I'm being too specific, if twirling of the hair and shoveling of the snow and Eagles ball caps isn't what makes your marriage playful, find out what does. Flirting, like every part of love and sexuality, is a mystery, and it's full of discovery. It's expressed in a million customizable ways. It's a gift from God, a way to celebrate, a mature a way to nurture our marriage covenant. So let me ask you one more time. Have you flirted with your husband recently? Portia, Erin.

Where are you guys? Who’s out there?

Portia: I’m over here giggling and all googly eyed. Don't go anywhere, Dannah, come back. I have been over here. First of all, I can do a better job of flirting. Second of all, that was great practical, just gospel rich advice. So, thank you from the new kid, the youngster on the block. Thank you.

Now look, we're gonna keep piling this up. It’s time to give our Grounded girls the good stuff, the inside scoop that we know you won't find anywhere else. So first up, actually our tools today is for tools. Revive Our Hearts is offering four 30-day challenges this month to equip you.

So, first is the Husband Encouragement Challenge. This is one of our most popular challenges ever. And here's the challenge: say only positive things, nothing negative about your husband for 30 days. I am telling you, it will transform the way you feel about your man.

Second is a brand-new challenge. It's called Singled Out. And you guessed it, it is for our single sisters. Of course, we can't forget about you. It is really rich content that will keep your heart grounded in Christ this month, especially when it may seem like everyone else in the world is coupled and you feel a little left out. Listen, this challenge is for you.

We also have the Singles Challenges for our Spanish-speaking sisters—one for younger women, one for older women. All of these challenges come with a devotional that is sent straight to your inbox every day for 30 days.

And you already know our team members put their hearts and a lot of wisdom into keeping you grounded in truth. Alright, so you can choose the challenge that is right for you, you can find them all at ReviveOurHearts.com/challenges. We will drop the link in the show notes and in the comments.

Erin: Portia, you think I can get away with calling Jason my boo. How you doing? Hey, boo.

Portia: That's my Mikhail’s word. We’re like boo, hey boo.

Dannah: You could get away with it, Erin.

Erin: I'm gonna try it. I always say that February is the longest shortest month. It is not a lot of days on the calendar, but I can feel like it goes on forever because it's cold and the weather isn't great. We just gave you the secret to spicing up your February, so we want to hear how it goes. It's time to say goodbye so that you can get busy flirting with your man.

But before we go, I want you to know something very exciting. We celebrate each other's victories here on Grounded. Our girl Dannah Gresh is releasing a new book this week in celebration of marriage. It's called Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage. It's coming out, it's shipping, you can order it. It'll be your way soon. Dannah, before we say goodbye, tell our friends about that book because I know they're gonna want it.

Dannah: Erin, I'd love to. I couldn't help as we were working on this program, which was so fun today, that there are marriages that are hurting, not flirting. I just want to say that if that's you, today's episode is no less for you. I know exactly what it's like to hurt through a conversation like this and a hope through it. And if that's you, next week’s program is really going to be encouraging to you.

Our marriage, mine and Bob's marriage, was experiencing the pain of pornography and lust. I have my husband's permission to share that. Bob loved me, but he was experiencing bondage. This new book recounts our journey. I just want you to imagine what could happen if the people of God started responding to our marriage problems God's way. Well, I'll tell you what would happen, we'd experience His redemption. Bob and I have. We still are. And my man will be here with me next week on Grounded to testify along with the other Grounded husbands.

Erin: Yeah. Back popular demand. People loved this last year when we brought our husbands on. We just said we want you back on, so they're coming on. We're gonna give out lots of hope and perspective.

Dannah: Yes, my boo is ready. He texted me today, “Like next week right?” And I was like, “Yep.”

Erin: My husband will trim the beard a little bit before next week. We'll see what happens.

Portia: Well, the day before Valentine's Day, we're going to bring our Valentines, our boos, our husbands to work with us. I will be talking about fighting for instead of with our husbands. Let's wake up with hope together next week on Grounded.

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