Getting Your Edge Back In Marriage

Often times pain from the past robs you of power in your present and it sabotages your ability to connect deeply with your spouse. We heard it said, "If you never heal from what hurt you, then you’ll bleed on those who did not cut you.” 

Anytime you put two human beings together, at some point, sparks are going to fly. But what we’ve found is that the sparks that fly are often a fruit of the issue, not the root. They are simply symptoms of the real problem. 

The deeper issue is often linked to pain from the past. And it’s not until conflict arises that what’s at the bottom of our hearts begins to bubble up to the top. 

Fortunately, we have an example in Scripture of how to locate and heal past issues that can sabotage our present relationship.  Tune in as we dive into 2 Kings 6 to discover how we can get our edge back in marriage!

Transcript

Today, we're going to dive into a really cool topic. We've titled it getting your edge back in marriage. We're specifically talking about, um, dealing with pain from the past that robs you of your power in the present. That's a lot of peas. That is, I didn't even mean that, but yeah, but when you, when you've gone through something in the past and maybe you've dealt with it, maybe you haven't, but chances are good you haven't dealt with it.

It doesn't matter what it is, something you did, something somebody did to you. Uh, just a painful experience and it gets lodged down and buried in your subconscious. And what you don't realize is that, uh, pain from the past or whatever it was that you went through can oftentimes sabotage you in the present.

And so we're going to talk about how you fix that and how you can get it back. What we specifically call getting your edge back. And we'll tell you why. It's all about getting your edge back in the meantime, before we jump to that, we got to go to a song. We have a good one today. Yes. This one is, uh, forest, forest black is the name of the guy.

I don't know if he's any good or what, but his song fall into me. Yeah. Fall into me. Wow. It's funny because I find these songs or whatever, and I start playing them and then Lundy. And one of my kids is like, dad, how'd you find this song? This one's like in my playlist. Like, I don't know. Cause we're that cool.

We are that cool. Oh, you know how I found this? We were walking in this great place called, um, Birkdale village. If you live in Charlotte, Birkdale village is awesome. It's in Huntersville. If you ever did a marriage mentorship with us, then we'll bring you to Burkdale Village for some good sushi, but we had Dan and Jess Smith with us in from Minneapolis and they were doing a two day marriage intensive with us.

We were walking in, um, Burkdale Village and I heard this song and then I asked. Siri who it was, and this is it. So that was the first time you heard that? That song, yes. Oh, I've heard this several times before. I love this song. Oh. I'm glad, I'm glad you, uh, were introduced to it. Well, la ti freakin da.

Alright, here we go. Fall into me, Forrest Black. You should close your eyes. Fall into me. And I'll catch you, darling. Dancing in the street. Like nobody's watching. It's just you

and me.

And the song I'll repeat in my head Puttin drunk on the moment ice If that's what you wanted I'd give you my life From now till forever I'm fallin in love that cool? So good. I love that. That's one of my favorite things about the week is trying to find a really cool song for you guys. And so maybe if you've got a cool song and you're like, you have to play this one, reach out to us at Jason and Tori on Instagram on Instagram.

Well, do you even look at the messages on Instagram? Cause I don't from time to time you do. Yeah. Okay. Cause I don't think it might take a minute, but I will get to them. Okay. Um, I'm, I'm not, I'm on social media, maybe five minutes a week and that's whenever I'm posting our podcast. That's about it. Oh, I got it.

I got to admit, maybe once every two weeks though, I'll jump on Twitter, which is now called X and I'll scroll through the conservative pundits and see what's going on in the world. Yeah. That takes me about 30 minutes. But anyway, I'm just seriously digressing. Let's get back into marriage. You good? Let's move.

Let's do this. Okay. We're talking about getting your edge back. Um, I heard this great quote, um, by don't even know who it's author unknown, but it says this. If you never heal from what hurt you. Then you'll bleed on those who did not cut you. Oh, wow. That's, that's very true. If you don't heal from what hurt you, you're going to bleed on those who did not cut you.

You know, in marriage, anytime you put two human beings together, at some point sparks are going to fly. I mean, Tori and I talk about this a lot. We talk about it in our book. Tori and I actually just finished. A second book, Marriage A to Z, where we share 30 principles that will help you develop, grow, and strengthen your marriage.

We'll release that soon. Um, and there's a way for you to get it for nothing. That's right. Yeah. And so we'll talk more about that. Or not now? No, not yet, because I haven't quite released it yet. Coming. Yeah. Coming, guys. If you have gone and done our five day marriage challenge, um, online, which just go to beautyandbattle.

com or jasonandtori. com, sign up for our free five day marriage challenge. Then at the end of that, uh, we give you the book, so you'll like it. Um, digitally, uh, sent to you though, so you're not going to get a physical book. But anyway, let me get back into this because we're talking about marriage being the context for conflict.

We talk about it a lot, that marriage is the context for conflict. God puts you together because conflict makes you more like him. So it's like, you know, sandpaper on a nice piece of wood. You know, it. You, you got to rub that thing down and it gets nice and smooth and the wood can actually be useful. Um, marriage is the context for conflict, but here's what we found.

When the sparks fly, they are often the fruit of the issue, not the root. They're simply symptoms of the real problem. Right. So what's the real problem? Well, the real problem is the deeper issue. That's typically linked to pain from the past. I'll give you a quick, quick example. If, um, Tori had a, like a, a really bad bruise on her arm from something that happened a few weeks ago, and I'm walking in the kitchen and I accidentally bump into her, and I bump into that arm and I brush against it.

She could really overreact and turn around and whack me or she could yell at me or something and instantly I'm like, what the heck did I do and you're mad at me, but I really didn't do anything The issue wasn't that I ran into you the issue wasn't that you yelled at me or that you hit me The issue was that you were hurt from the past and it hadn't healed yet, right?

That was the issue. So what we want to do is help you get to the bottom of figuring out what the issue is. And so fortunately for us, there's a scripture. There's a story in second King six about the prophet Elisha that'll really help us. And Tori and I've talked with a lot of couples about this because what would you say percentage of time we've.

We've counseled couples and we've had to go back to something in the past for one or both of them, probably 80% of the time. I don't actually know that we've ever talked to, done a couple that we haven't done that with. Yeah. Yeah. , it is funny. So I've shared this story so much and, and I was thinking, I don't think I've ever shared this on the podcast, so I wanna give it to you guys, but in Second King six, Elisha the prophet, um, gathered up a bunch of his other, uh, prophets that were up under him, up under his leadership, and they had to build a new building.

And of course, none of these guys have money. They don't have any tools or anything like that. So they had to borrow all their tools. And back in this day, you know, back in Bible days, it was an agrarian society. So if you borrowed someone's pickaxe, or if you borrowed their ax or their Matic or their shovel, you're literally borrowing the thing that they rely on for their Livelihood, right?

So these profits all borrowed their axes and they're cutting down trees to start the building of a, of a building because they were growing so fast and they needed extra space. So then all of a sudden, out of the middle of nowhere, one of the profits goes to swing at the tree and the axe head that was borrowed flew off.

So he still had a hold of the handle, but the axe head flew off and it landed into the river behind him. Okay, now, in that moment, the man had lost his edge. So he could keep whacking on that tree, and he'd be doing a lot of work, a lot of hard work, but it wouldn't be amounting to anything. Because he lost the edge.

Right. Okay, now, what is your edge? Your edge is that special part of you that makes you powerful and strong. Okay, it's, it's what makes you, you. Like what, Tori's edge is different than my edge. Right. My edge is different than her edge. My edge is different than your edge. Your edge is different than your spouse's edge.

It's what makes you, you, but it's what makes you powerful and strong. And God has made each one of us unique, but pain from the past and issues from the past and sometimes sin from the past can sabotage our present. It removes our edge from us. So how do we get it back? Well, let's look at the story. So this prophet was trying to cut the tree down his ax head that was borrowed, flew off, and now it's in the bottom of the river behind him.

And it was a deep river and he goes to Elisha and he says, I lost my edge, I lost the ax and it was borrowed, I got to get it back. And Elisha then tells him, where did it fall? That's the first thing. And so the man brought him over to the edge of the river and he pointed to the place where it fell and then Elisha grabbed a stick and threw it into the river.

Now, a lot of commentators believe that the stick that Elisha threw into the river is the same type of wood that made up the tree, um, that became the cross of Christ. So it's the same wood, right? We don't know that for sure, but a lot of commentators do believe that. So he throws the stick into the river, right at the place where the man said he lost his edge and the ax head floats to the top, the ax head, the iron ax head did something against its nature.

And Supernature took over and then Elisha told the man, go in and get it back. You walk in there and get it back. Don't leave it in there. Go get it. Now put the edge back on and then go back and get to work right now. You've got your edge back. Now you're sharp again. Okay. What we do to get our edge back, to make sure that pain from the past or sin from the past, or any type of issue from the past that's sabotaging us from our present.

The way to get it back is to do the same three step process. Number one, go back to the place where you lost it. Like go back to that place. What? And it doesn't have to be the specific place. It could be a general place, it could be, you know, for me, I remember feeling that way. If you've ever read our book, I have felt like I had lost my edge a little bit, you know, relationally with Tory, and I had to go back all the way to when I was 13 years old and got my heart broke.

Mm-hmm. , right? And there it gave birth to a little bit of an insecurity that I didn't even know was there, but I had to go back. So you go back to the place where you lost your edge. What is that? Getting to the root is all about. Remember remembering pain from the past. A time when something painful happened to you, or maybe you caused someone else pain.

It could be even a sin from the past that caused you to lose that special part of you and now you feel powerless. So let's go back to that. You know, if it could have been somebody that you were working with, a co worker, and maybe you started in a relationship with them and now you're just too close.

That could be it. You know, it could be something way different than that. So that's the first thing. Go back to the place where you first lost your edge. Number two, bring the cross of Christ into the picture. So Elisha throws the wood into the river. That's the cross of Christ. Um, If you've caused pain through your own sin, then repent, make things right.

Get back on track. That's what bringing the cross of Christ into the picture is if you're going back to when you lost your edge and it was something that, you know, you, you, you started down a downward spiral of contemptuous thinking toward another person or towards your spouse, right? Remember when that started, go back and bring the cross of Christ there, which means reprocessing the situation.

Through the cross of Christ through the fact that God was there the whole time. Yes, that pain hurt. Yes It was awful, but your Heavenly Father was there and now he's gonna use that to help someone else, right? So if pain was inflicted on you in the past bringing the cross of Christ into it looks like reprocessing it Recognizing that he was there and then walking through the steps of forgiveness.

And if you want to know how to properly forgive when someone hasn't repented, you got to go back in our podcast episodes and look on forgive. Look at the one, um, listen to the one on forgiveness redefined. Or if you have our book on hand, turn to the back appendix, it's forgiveness redefined. It gives you a whole different take on forgiveness and it'll be very helpful to you.

So if pain was inflicted on you, then you go back to that place. And you're going to reprocess that situation. You're going to recognize that God allowed it to happen. He was there. He hasn't abandoned you. And that pain that you experience is going to be turned into power for your present. And you're going to be able to help a lot of people.

Okay, that's what bringing the cross of Christ into that situation looks like. So true. And that's step two. So step one, go back to the place where you lost your edge. Step two, bring the cross of Christ into the picture. Reprocess it. Number three, watch the miraculous take over. You have to trust that when you do those things, That the supernatural is going to take over that ax head floated, right?

Okay, it floated. You have to metal ax head in water. Yeah, that is not natural iron does not float But you have to have the faith that God is gonna come through on his part If you're going back to where you first lost it and you're like, okay, I got to bring Christ into this Okay, let's try to reprocess it, but you really don't have faith that God can do something in this, right?

You're not gonna get your edge back You've got to have faith. And here's what you can trust that God will supernaturally begin to do things in your life and relationship that were impossible before you allowed him to take over. This is, this is important stuff.

And you know, as you were saying this, and I think I'm just thinking back to what you were talking about with, um, The axe had not being his own right and I think the sense of urgency for us to get our edge back comes from knowing that it's not our own right like there was the sense of urgency like oh my gosh I lost my my edge.

And I need it back because it's not my own. And I think that when we lose our edge that there needs to be a sense of urgency because it's not our own. We are not, you know, we bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. Like we are not people of this world. And so it's so, our lives are so much bigger than ourselves.

And if we've lost our edge, it's not just us that's affected, it's the whole world that's affected by that. And so I think that, you know, for us in our relationship, when we began to, to notice that we had lost our edge in our relationship, something was missing, right? And, but it wasn't until we really began to understand the foundation of marriage that, like, our marriage is not for us, it's, like, there are other people that, That it affects.

Yeah. And our marriage is not our own. Like we, we were called to live holy lives because of who we are in Christ and it's our lives are not our own. And I just think that, you know, sometimes if you don't feel that urgency to get back something that you had, maybe, maybe you're not looking at it right.

Maybe you're not seeing it as, You know, like the, uh, just the urgency of, of needing some, or it being something that is not your own. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I like that. You know I said there were three steps, but as I was sitting here thinking about this There's actually a fourth step So once the supernatural takes over you know and back in that story when the axe head started floating there was a fourth step He had to go in and get it.

He doesn't just let it sit there in the river Right, right. You know, I think there's a and that that would be the fourth step. Get it back, go get it and get back to work. Right. Like now that you've got your edge back, get back to work. Yeah. Get back and use it. So right. Don't just wallow in your pain.

Right. I just think that there are so many folks out there. Now what we're seeing is an overemphasis on empathy. Where people are like, Oh, we just need to hurt and come alongside people in their journey and all that kind of stuff. And I get that. And we do need that. But if there's no, okay, now let's get out of the pit.

Yes. Okay. I was in the pit for you with you right now. Let's get out. Let's get healthy. Right. Right. If you just are like, Oh no, let's just sit in this pit. Well, then you're leaving the axe head in the river. Oh yeah, it's floating alright, but you ain't going to get it because you want to wallow in your pain.

Because for some crazy reason, you're still feeling connected to the people who are empathizing with you. Right. Rather than those people saying, alright now, get up and let's get back to work. And that's the fourth step. Get the edge back. Get in that water, pull it back, put it on the, put it on the stick there and go whack that tree down.

Yeah. So good. So tell, tell me the four steps one more time. So first go back to the place where you lost your edge. So go back, remember where that was, bring the cross of Christ into the picture, like re filter it, reprocess it through the grid of God. Number three, watch the miraculous and have faith that the miraculous will take over.

And number four, get it back and get to work, right? Go get it. God has given you the edge that you need to live a powerful life and experience a wonderful marriage. Okay. But it's going to require you to possess, to process any potential pain from the past. It's a line directly from our new book. You're going to have to process that potential pain.

And when you do, you need to watch God's supernatural power invade your relationship. Now here's something I want you to do, okay? I want you to spend some time alone and ask God if there's any area of your life or relationship where you've lost your edge, okay? Just ask him. Get up early one morning when it's real quiet or the kids are already in bed, you know, stay up late, ask him, have you lost your edge in any area?

You know, a lot of times you know that you've lost your edge when you don't really feel, I talked about being empathetic just a minute ago. If you don't feel Empathy at all. You've lost your edge. Yeah, have you become numb? Yeah, numb is not good. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.

If you feel indifferent towards someone That you know that you shouldn't be indifferent toward, especially your spouse, right? You've lost your edge. You got to get it back. There might be some things that you need to talk through. So, ask God, is there an area of your life or your relationship where you've lost your edge?

Then, ask your spouse if they see any area where you may have lost it. Okay, now that's a dangerous place to be, but then ask your spouse to be very honest with you. Can you see any area of my life where you think maybe I've lost my edge? And it might be a discouragement. You know, and oftentimes the edge is lost, not because of something you did, but because of something that happened to you and you got to deal with that pain.

And then once you realize that, yeah, maybe I have lost it here. Maybe, maybe my, my spouse has lost it here and I want to help them get it back. Walk them through these four steps. And in doing that, you're going to process that pain from the past and you'll not fall into the trap where that, that unknown quote, I said at the beginning, if you never heal from what hurt you, then you'll bleed on those who did not cut you.

That won't be true in your relationship. So you got to process that pain. Get your edge back. So good. I love that. It's helpful. And I love that you just pulled that out of scripture What where is that found second king six? Yeah, so good. Yeah, I love doing that and I want to do that more I've done a lot of those in the past but stuff where we Tori and I literally just dive into scripture and just pull stuff out.

So hmm. I wanted I want to do that more Yeah, you and I were just talking about we were as we were discussing this with each other earlier just how How natural it is to operate, you know, in the pain of our past because in, in through fear, right? Like the fear that is triggered from the pain of our past, it gets us stuck because we don't, we're terrified of feeling that, that again, right?

And it's, you know, as we were going through these steps, it's just, you know, bringing God into it and, and, and recognizing that he can do this, the supernatural, like that he can do what we cannot do. Like he's so powerful, but yet we operate. In the negative, right? We operate in this fear and doubt and just this, just, you know, just the fear of, of feeling that pain again, but instead of in the power of who Christ is, like that he can actually do.

The supernatural. Yeah. And it's, it's just such a conviction to me because there, I do struggle with fear so much that, and I operate out of fear so much, but I'm like, no, that is not, that is, that is not how we as believers operate. We operate in faith and in, um, in power. And, um, it just was so convicting to me just in different areas where I let fear lead me.

And, um, And just, you know, understanding and acknowledging that I don't have to live in the fear of, of pain from a past experience, but I can live in power. Yeah. And then you won't be experienced driven. You'll be love driven. Yeah, exactly. You'll make your decisions based upon your, your, your vision and your values and your goals rather than your emotions.

Yeah. You don't want that to happen. Right. So then we move forward. So good. Do you have a, um, recipe or anything? Yes. So last week we talked about how I was going to make a French toast casserole for the intensive and guys, I'm going to be honest. It was, it did not turn out. What are you talking about? You loved it.

I loved it. I am not going to share that recipe with you yet because it still needs to be perfected. I'm doing it. I did it with French toast. I loved it. French toast. Our, um, sourdough is just. a different kind of bread in the way that it absorbs liquid. And so I just, I could have like quadrupled the eggs in that.

I'm going to keep working on it. So I'm not going to share that recipe with you guys, but I'm going to perfect it and get it down pat. And then I will share it with you guys. Um, okay. But the recipe, I. So what I am going to share with you guys this week. Drum roll please. Drum roll. Okay, I don't know how to do all that.

Um, is there a parent, I don't have TikTok, but a friend on Instagram shared a Italian grinder recipe. Oh yeah, we just ate that. It was amazing. So I guess it's going viral on TikTok right now from what I'm hearing. And anyways, I have the recipe. But nobody did it with sourdough bread, right? Right. I don't know.

I don't know if they did, but we, I mean, I turned our sourdough, um, bread into baguettes. I brought this pan that you can, you know, bake 13 on Amazon. Just did the regular, um, recipe, sourdough recipe, but turn the dough into baguette. Yeah. And it turned out amazing. Yeah. Jake said, mom, can that be my every year birthday dinner for every year birthday from now on?

Yeah. Every year birthday dinner. He ate four of them for, it was so good whole sandwiches. So I will share the recipe with you guys. It's by wellness by K K a y. com. That's where the recipe is. It's the Italian grinder. Salad sandwich, tick tock viral recipe. And it was all the rave. It was banging. Very good.

Yeah. But she put red onions in it. Oh yeah. So, you know. Just a quick disclaimer, if you maybe want to be intimate that night, I would not eat those first, because that can really rock your mouth. Yeah, there's really nothing you can do when you've had that much red onion. There's no amount of gum. There's no amount of gum or mints or anything.

You can deal with that. That can combat that. You need a full on tongue scrape. But it was worth it, honestly. Yeah, I know it was. Yeah. It was awesome. So, and Tori gave it to her brother, Frankie, who is an Italian, a full on Italian, and he is totally into Italian grinders and he's like, this is incredible.

He's like, this is a 20 sub. Yeah. So. All right. So you'll share that and you got it on video. Yes. Okay. So I'm sharing with that with you guys on Jason and Tori Instagram and you guys try it out. Tell me what you guys think. I like it. It was definitely, it was not hard either. I mean, you don't have to make sourdough baguettes.

You can just, you know, get some regular baguettes and knock it out. Yeah. The baguettes. That reminds me of, uh, yeah, the baguettes on Lion King. Well, Reese, the baguettes. Okay. Hey guys, thanks for hanging out with us. Hopefully this time next week, I'll be telling you about our book, where to get it, how to get it free and all of those things.

But thanks for hanging out with us and we will see you next week. In the meantime, don't forget, listen, can you rate our podcast for us? I mean, I'm Tori and I don't really ask for that much, but just do it. You know? Yeah, why not? It's kind of a cool thing. I actually, for the first time, I was listening to a podcast with a friend and they asked to rate, review, subscribe.

I'm like, oh, I need to do that. Oh, maybe I should do that with my own. A hundred episodes in. It's actually not that hard. You just. Well, I don't even remember what I did. I went to the, I went to the podcast and I scrolled down and yeah, there's a way to do it. There's a way to do it. And it's really easy.

All right. We'll see you guys next week. I don't think that was the Lion King. I think it was Beauty and the Beast. Oh, you're right. It was Beauty and the Beast. So that's a great call. I caught that. I like that. All right, guys. We'll see you soon. All right.