Episode 001: How to Reset Your Marriage Compass

001 How to Reset Your Marriage Compass

Carlie K.: 00:00 Hello. Hello everybody. We are so excited to be here. We are going to rock this podcast today. First of all, let us welcome you. Welcome to the marriage legacy builders podcast. We're your hosts, Mike and Carlie Kercheval. Together Michael and I co-founded the site Christian Marriage Adventures™. And it is our love and joy every single day to be able to serve married couples around the world by helping them discover their God given purpose as a couple and fulfill the call and create the legacy they want to leave behind for generations to come. So today, what are we talking about?

Mike K.: 00:42 We're going to be talking about how to reset your marriage compass.

Carlie K.: 00:47 Now that sounds good, right? Like, oh, that sounds awesome. Yes, I want to reset my marriage compass. But then the questions come in of, well, what does that mean? Why would I even do it? And how? So we're going to cover that today and more in our, in our podcast. The first thing that we're going to talk about is why you need to reset your marriage compass. First of all, let's define that. Essentially your marriage compass is your true North it's the true North that God has put inside of you and your spouse to walk out on this earth. So for Michael and I, that includes a couple of things, but one of the biggest calls that we have together as a couple is to lead people into their purpose, to help them discover how they fulfill that purpose. But more than anything, to be intentional about creating these legacies for Jesus.

Mike K.: 01:45 And I know for Carlie and I, he gave us this vision back in the 90s, you guys. And, back then we were young and we were like, what? You know what I mean? We were young and weren't married yet. That's the big, yes, we were definitely not married. And um, little did we know that, you know, almost 20 years later that we'd be here right now sharing this with you guys. And so, yes, I mean, God, God is just awesome you guys.

Carlie K.: 02:16 He has a purpose. And without our compasses being pointed toward Him, what we would call true North, then we're not going to be hearing what He has. We're going to be missing the opportunity to serve the people that God has called us to serve. And so that is what we want to talk to you about today. So the reason that you actually need to reset your marriage compass, it may be because life events, they've just thrown you off course, right? You want to start fresh. I don't know how many times Michael and I had been doing something and things were great, but then something happened. Whether it was a death of a loved one, it could have been a move, it could have been a job transfer, a job loss, you know, a child suffering through something. I mean sickness, you name it. You know, we've been through so many different things. And we know you have as well that have put us in situations where we just are thrown into like a tailspin.

Mike K.: 03:10 That's it. Cause I I know for, I know for you and I Carlie, for me, my point of view, just when I, I felt like things were getting stable or comfortable, I should say. Then something else came our way and then you're like, Oh my gosh, we just worked through this. We just worked through this, but now we have to deal with a whole different transition, you know? And so that's it. You just have to work through things and, and trust God, you know, through the purpose.

Carlie K.: 03:39 Well, and that's the whole point of resetting your compass. These are the times that you have to do that because you're not going to be able to reorient yourself. You can't, when you're, when you're looking to the left and God is calling you to go to the right, you then become fixated with what's over on the left. What other obstacles are keeping you in that spot and you become stuck. You know? Also this is all applying to, you know, when you're looking to find God's purpose, let's say you don't know your purpose yet as an individual, let alone as a couple. Well then that's even more important for you to be on that track of resetting your compass. Cause we all have a compass, right? Yep. It's pointing towards something and for believers that compass is supposed to be pointing toward God, but if we're not intentionally doing the work to make it to where that compass is pointing towards Jesus through, you know, it comes through a lot of ways, right? We know that comes through reading our Bible. It comes through praying as an individual and together it comes in with fellowship, with other believers, worshiping with other believers, worshiping alone, serving, loving, giving. It's like heartbreak. I mean there's all these things that point us to Jesus. And so that is what this is about. And you know what's really cool is when you start to find your purpose, you'll realize that it was really right in front of you all along

Mike K.: 04:58 that that is so true. I know, you know, a long time ago when I was trying to figure out my individual purpose, that I would either make up excuses or I would say, Hey, I'm like so-and-so. Somebody I might've seen on TV or heard before and all along God was like all these different things in your life. The common denominator is my love was there and I've given you the compassion to reach out. So some of you out there, you can be like, man, I'm way off. You might not be way off, but you need to do the things that Carlie was saying. Read the Bible, have fellowship, keep doing what you know what's right, but give it your all within it.

Carlie K.: 05:44 And this is, it goes down to my next point is that, you know, if you're really truly ready to experience your best marriage in this season of life, you have to reset your marriage compass. You have to do it. And my guess is that everybody listening right now wants to have the best marriage that they can have today and in the future. So one of the things that we get asked a lot is, okay, that's great. And yes, we're on board, we want this, but how, how am I able to reset my compass? Like reading, the Bible can get boring or you know, praying, praying, you know, can can become dry because I feel like God isn't hearing my prayer. Well, one of the things that that should give you the fuel to the fire so to speak, is knowing your "why", what's important to you, what in this season of life right now are you literally living for besides Jesus?

Carlie K.: 06:39 What is it? It may be you may be living so that your child can have a better life than you did. It may be that you're living because you want to prove the devil wrong. He's lying to you constantly in your head or in your heart. You have these thoughts that are ungodly about yourself, so maybe that is your why, but whatever that is, you have to regroup and figure out what you really, really want in this season of life and that's the first part of the process. When you are resetting, you have to literally regroup. You have to just say, you know what? What I was doing in the past is no longer working and I can't go into the future with this mindset. You then have to start identifying and eliminating the things that aren't necessary in this season.

Mike K.: 07:29 So true. Along with what you're saying, Carlie, as you're figuring out your why during this season of life, you need to guard that "why". You need to say, you know what, like, like you said, there's going to be things that I need to eliminate out of my life so I can get focused on my why and what God has for me right then and there.

Carlie K.: 07:53 Yeah, that's true. Essentially you have to get rid of the old things. Yes. Because like the Bible tells us you cannot put new wine in old wineskins. So a lot of times when we're frustrated and we're struggling and we don't understand why things aren't going the way that God said that they would, it's because we're getting in the way. We're not listening to God because we're so full of the things, the junk that doesn't help us. That could be opinions from, you know, people outside of the house. It can be opinions from your spouse, it could be yourself having negative self talk. It can be, you know, maybe you're just not doing things that are healthy right now. Maybe you've kinda gone down a path that's having you stray from God, but it's never too late to clear the plate, so to speak and start fresh.

Carlie K.: 08:40 So another thing that you have to think about when you're resetting your compass, and this is how you do it. So these are ways that you do it. It's a process of just figuring out what you want, identifying and eliminating those things that aren't necessary in this season. But then you have to create that plan of action. And this plan of action. You guys, you know, a lot of times people like to make these grandeur plans and it's exciting, right? You're like, wow, you can look to the future with hope and, and you can look at it and be like, you know what? Yes we can do this. But then comes the part where you have to implement. And this is where most people fall off the wagon. And so what I want to encourage you to do today is to sit down together and go through these steps.

Carlie K.: 09:25 And create a plan of action with some little tiny baby steps attached to them every day. Something really minute. Nothing that is even really huge. It doesn't have to be, a lot of people think, Oh, you know, we want to, let's say we want to host a marriage workshop next month. Let's just say that's a goal that you have right now. And then that's great. But the first step isn't going to be, you know, let me contact Focus on the Family, like a massive marriage ministry and see if they want to host it. No, they don't. I can tell you that right now. You're not ready. However, you could start, you know, getting a pulse from maybe your local church, you know, Hey pastor, can we talk to you about something we feel called to do this thing? Or maybe you host one somewhere in your local community or just amongst family and friends to practice. You know, it's those little tiny things. Making sure that when you have a baby step that it's not something that's unattainable.

Mike K.: 10:26 Yes. And, along with what you're saying, Carlie, and I know for me, my personal experience in our relationship, I know that when it came to taking action or, or having a plan, I used to get frustrated because I would say all these things I'd get excited. And then Carlie would be like, well, how are you going to get there? And then I was like, Oh my gosh, because I didn't think past that last experience or that emotion. Now I have to put some thought into it, you know? But when you put things into motion, you're going to feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. You're going to be like, Oh my gosh, I really got to do this. And then you, but you have your spouse right there to help hold you accountable along the way. You guys are sitting down and saying, this is what we're going to do and we're going to take these baby steps because baby steps to us aren't baby steps to God. God's seeing your faith. He's seeing your obedience and he's walking you through the process

Carlie K.: 11:27 and he sees consistency. Cause another thing that where people really fail us included is that you know your life when you're not oriented toward your true North. You know when your compass is not pointing towards Jesus, you may be taking baby steps and you feel like, well okay, I'm doing these things but I'm still not seeing anything in return. And sometimes that's just because you're inpatient, right? Can I get an amen? I know that happens a lot, right? But also it's because you're not taking the baby steps in the right direction because your compass is off. We know we all have, the GPS is not, you know, it started off in our cars and we got, well first it was MapQuest to print them out and you just would, would go places, you know, this is awesome. Then we got the GPS is actually in our cars and it was like Whoa.

Carlie K.: 12:12 And now every device, you can have a maps app on there and it takes you where you're going because you might think, Oh yeah, this, this road, this is the right road. I know I'm going East cause I got to go East. But then there's a slight curve in that road that you can't see because it's, it's too slight for the natural eye to really realize that it's happening because maybe you're fixated on the road and staying on it, or you're fixated on the trees on the side or whatever it may be. And then the next thing you know, you're no longer going East. You're going West. That's a little exaggeration. You understand what I'm saying? It really, you could get off track really, really quickly without even knowing it. And so as you take these steps and as you hold each other accountable, you're going to be positioning yourself to hear from God again because without resetting that compass that you have internally, God tells us that he wrote on our hearts the tablet on the tablet of our hearts.

Carlie K.: 13:10 He wrote the law, he wrote his commands. So those are things that I remember when I wasn't even a Christian. I got saved in 1998 September 13th, 1998 I gave my life to Christ. Prior to that, I was just full of anger and just pain. And I remember sitting there thinking, okay, I know that all of the things I'm doing are wrong. I didn't know why they were wrong. So every time I would sin, every time I did something stupid, thought, horrible things about other people, I just knew like this is not okay. And that's because my compass was was wrong. It was all out of whack. It was like literally a 180 away from where I was supposed to be. And I was sowing pain and I was sowing hatred and I was sowing all the things that are opposite of what God wants us to sow.

Carlie K.: 13:58 But once I came to Christ by the Holy spirit, by his grace, by all the things that, that I was able to then walk in and know were truth, I was able to reorient. And now I'm walking that straight, narrow path that God talks about. The straight and narrow path doesn't mean that you're walking perfection. It doesn't mean that you're perfect. Rather what it means is that you are walking toward him every day. So I would encourage you to focus less on the big end, you know, celebration goals. Those are great and we all have to have them, but it's those little innocuous habits that you have every day. It could be maybe you've gotten out of the habit of greeting your spouse when they come home, not because you don't love them, not because you're mad at them, simply because it's become familiar to you.

Carlie K.: 14:49 And it's those little habits like that. Take notes, sit down together and say, Hey, what is something that we used to do that we no longer do that you think would be beneficial to our marriage in this season of life? And it may be that you write down, number one, it could say, Hey, greet each other again when we come home. Maybe it's let's give each other a good night kiss. Maybe it's let's pray together before we eat. I mean, there are so many habits that we let slip when our eyes are not focused on Jesus. And I'm talking guys, this can happen through any season of life. I don't care how busy you are, I don't care. The kind of stress that you have going on. Like Mike talked about earlier, it's excuses that we make up to make our selves feel comfortable. Yeah. When in fact we need to not be comfortable. We need to be doing the uncomfortable things so that we make sure that that connection with God is never severed.

Mike K.: 15:42 And I liked the fact, Carlie, what you said, you guys need to come together and communicate. Don't assume you know what your spouse is thinking or don't put expectations on your spouse. Talk, communicate, express yourself. And as you're doing that, keep the focus on God. God will show you guys, okay, here's some things you guys, we can, you guys can tackle together one step at a time. And another thing about looking at things you want, you know, we, we're, we're built to look at the end result. What is the end result? Okay, well with God, he said that he will give you his best. Whatever your purpose is, he has his best for you. God will show that as you continually walk. Look at David. David was told he was going to be a King as a teenage or a little boy, but he didn't know what that looked like until he became a man. God put him in positions so he can take those baby steps to work towards being a King.

Carlie K.: 16:44 Exactly. And I'm sure there's many of you out there today that, that know you have an inkling of what that calling is for you and your husband or wife. And that was Mike and I, like you shared earlier, we were just engaged when God gave us this call and here it is. It's more than 20 years over 21 years later we're walking it out and it took a lot of time to get here. And there were times where we questioned that and we weren't sure like, okay, did we hear right? Was that just us? No, it was God. But just because he told us that this is going to be what it was the future was going to hold, didn't mean it was going to happen tomorrow. It certainly is not in our timing, but we do know that his timing truly is perfect. So one of the things we want to encourage you to do that if this episode resonated with you and you want to do the deep work, deep, deep work, you guys, I'm going to say it again, the deep work of resetting your compass in your marriage, then we highly recommend working through our course, true North marriage.

Carlie K.: 17:46 We put together this course because we wanted a place for people to be able to come to, to reset every so often. This isn't something that you only just do once or you know. Yeah, that sounds good. No, you really need to take action and you need to do it. And as a matter of fact, this course gives you a seven step compass to make sure your priorities are in line with what God has for you and your marriage. And the thing that's really cool is that your calling as a couple is unique to you only. Mike and I can't do it. You can't do what we do. And you know why? Because there's only one you, there's only one me we're different and there's only one marriage that looks like your marriage comprised of the two of you and that is a beautiful thing and so it's really good.

Carlie K.: 18:29 You know you would take the course, you work through it, you figure out where you're at in this season and what's beautiful is then you're going to begin to hear and walk out that purpose that God has for you from here on out. And it's good to take a refresher, you know every year, every other year depending on how you know your life is. As long as it stays on track and is oriented toward Christ, then you're able to stay laser focused on creating that legacy. You guys a legacy you want to leave behind for generations to come. So if you guys are interested in that, you can learn more at truenorthmarriage.com

Mike K.: 19:06 And also some of you are out there like, Hey, I am committed to all these things. You know, I go to church, I go to the sporting events for my kids. I'm doing all these things. I am just exhausted, but guess what? You can do this course in the comfort of your own home.

Carlie K.: 19:24 Yeah. That's the beautiful thing that we love about having digital courses now is you can do it on your time your way, but you have it. You have the resource to take you from where you're at right now to where God wants you to go. And then beginning of that journey is resetting your compass in your marriage and what's what's awesome you guys, although it's resetting your marriage compass, it's really resetting your compass as an individual as well, so you'll be refreshed as an individual and as a couple. So we're really grateful for all of you guys. We appreciate you joining us today and we just look forward to catching up with you. If you guys want to join us, you can. We actually have three groups on Facebook that may be of interest to you. The first one is our main group for husbands and wives and it's called Christian Marriage Adventures.

Carlie K.: 20:14 That's our online community and you can just find it by searching in on Facebook Christian Marriage Adventures. Our page will pop up and our group will pop up. And the group, you'll, you'll know the difference so you can request to join there. But also we have two separate groups. One for wives in one for husbands, Wives of Integrity is the Facebook group that I have for women. So we get to chat women's stuff, you know, wife, things that only women know, issues that our tender hearts really need to process together. And then I'll let you talk about your group.

Mike K.: 20:46 Yes. And then the other group is called Husbands of Integrity. And this is a group where men can come in and we can talk about things that's going to help us serve and love our wives better.

Carlie K.: 20:48 Yes. So either way guys, it's our heart's desire to have a safe place for us to cultivate community with those who love Jesus and love each other. So again, we appreciate you very much and we'll see you next time.