HOLY SPIRIT: Casting a Holy Spirit-Led 2025 for Couples | Love By Faith with Kyle & Selina Almodovar #057

In this episode, we share how to cast a Holy Spirit-led 2025 for couples!

We start this episode by sharing how couples explore the significance of the Holy Spirit in nurturing their relationships and how to invite divine guidance into their shared lives. Through personal stories and practical strategies, we emphasize prayer, surrender, and collaboration in vision casting for the future.

• Understanding the Holy Spirit's role in relationships
• Importance of having a shared vision as a couple
• Personal experiences of feeling guided by the Holy Spirit
• The necessity of surrendering personal plans for divine direction
• Practical ways to invite the Holy Spirit into daily life
• Writing down shared goals to enhance unity
• Building a community of support through shared spiritual experiences

Join us as we explore the essential role of the Holy Spirit in aligning our life plans with spiritual guidance. We share our unique approach to planning the year, from vacations to financial goals, ensuring that every step aligns with our spiritual vision. We emphasize the importance of communication, realistic budgeting, and setting achievable goals, supported by prayer and reflection. And we're thrilled to announce that our planning framework, complete with templates and prayer prompts, will soon be available in our playbook to help you on your journey. Embrace this transformative journey and discover how the Holy Spirit can revolutionize your relationships and personal growth.

Don't forget to download the couple's playbook for tools and resources to help you on this journey!

🔗 LINKS to things mentioned in this episode! 🔗

"Holy Spirit Activate" skit

Scriptures to Digest:
Acts 1:8 (ESV): "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Habakkuk 2:2 (ESV): "And the Lord answered me: 'Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it."

Chapters

• 0:00 Holy Spirit in Relationships
• 10:26 Guidance and Power of Holy Spirit
• 21:49 Planning With the Holy Spirit

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

How do couples use the Holy Spirit?

Speaker 2: 0:01

What are your plans, what is your vision for this year?

Speaker 1: 0:05

This is my plan. Lord. Bless it Instead of Lord. What is your plan, so that I can go and follow it?

Speaker 2: 0:09

There's a lot of people out there who do not have a healthy fear of the Lord. Let's see how the Holy Spirit can help one another.

Speaker 1: 0:15

Oh, it's so good.

Speaker 2: 0:16

We're not perfect people.

Speaker 1: 0:18

By any means.

Speaker 2: 0:26

But by trusting in God, we learned what it takes to build a friendship, a relationship and marriage that has stood the test of time, with a Keeping it Real style.

Speaker 1: 0:30

we're going to talk to you about everything everything that we've been through are going through and have overcome all by learning how to lean on God and each other in order to help you learn how to love by faith.

Speaker 2: 0:58

My hands are so ashy.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Lotion season is here.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Dude, I do.

Speaker 1: 1:07

I lotion all the time. I know I see the lotion right next to our sink.

Speaker 2: 1:09

You should. You just do it every time. You don't, how's it getting down?

Speaker 1: 1:11

I got my own.

Speaker 2: 1:12

I don't know how is the lotion going down? It's gotta be you gotta be me, who else? Sir okay, it's just it's. You know, it's just that dry winter season yeah, man man, it's no longer wet winter season, it's dry winter season.

Speaker 1: 1:27

That's funny. I just met a new lady at work who was from Colorado.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:31

And she described our winter as humid winter.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:34

And I had no idea that Midwest had humid winter versus Colorado has non-humid dry winter.

Speaker 2: 1:40

Well, you know, they got dry summer, wet summer.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Yeah, but I don't.

Speaker 2: 1:43

The more south you go, the more wet it feels like.

Speaker 1: 1:46

It feels like sticky and humid versus like dry texas weather I guess we'll have to go to colorado in the winter to see what what you're talking about maybe you're trying to take me from one cold to another and want me to determine it?

Speaker 2: 2:00

absolutely not. If you think I'm. If you think I'm ashy and wet winter, can you believe what I'll look like in dry winter?

Speaker 1: 2:07

That's funny. Welcome back January on the podcast. We're here.

Speaker 2: 2:11

We're here. We've gone through so many things in the past couple of days just to get to this place, to get to this couch, but we are very happy to be here and thank you guys for your support and just catching up to the episodes that you missed and looking forward to this new episode that we have for you guys today.

Speaker 2: 2:29

It's been such an honor I hope your holidays were great, so good Hope. You rang in the new year on a high note and we have a very important topic that we're going to talk about today that we think is going to be very helpful to believing couples, christian couples, and their marriages and their relationships. That's right and I don't want to sugarcoat it anymore. We're just going to dive right into it because it deserves that much time and attention.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Straight into the deep end.

Speaker 2: 2:55

This week, this month, we are going to be tackling the topic of the Holy Spirit Now-.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Holy.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Ghost. How does how Okay, let's start this over. Why or how can the Holy Spirit help a couple, a relationship?

Speaker 1: 3:13

Holy Spirit can help a couple, help a relationship, help an individual, all sorts of ways. Right, holy Spirit is literally called the helper. Okay, yeah, it's Holy Spirit. He works as a guide. Yeah, he worked. He's omnipresent, just like god. Right. Everything god is, the holy spirit is correct. Everything god is, the holy spirit is yes all-knowing check, all all-powerful check, sovereign check, all of that able to guide, able to give instruction, able to correct, counsel, encourage, empower, uplift. That's good, all those things the Holy Spirit does.

Speaker 2: 3:54

So we're assuming that a lot of the couples who are listening to this know about the Holy Spirit, perhaps have had an encounter with the Holy Spirit already, so they know how to activate it inside their relationship. But for some of those people out there who have no idea, they've heard it but they've never felt it, they never experienced it, and it sounds a little weird. It sounds a little like whoa spirits, what is that? What does that even mean? How does that even happen?

Speaker 2: 4:23

We don't want to scare anybody off, but first of all we know here at love by faith that the holy spirit is very, very real and if you allow that holy spirit to take a part of your relationship and into your own life and well-being, then, just like kyle said, all those things can happen in your everyday life yeah you know whether you need it, whether you think you need it or you stumble upon it and are so grateful that it came to you. You know what I mean. So let's just do a very small breakdown of like does everyone get the Holy Spirit?

Speaker 1: 4:58

You want me to just answer these Sure?

Speaker 2: 4:59

Just off the top of my head.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Okay.

Speaker 2: 5:01

And then, if you guys have any more questions about it after listening to this podcast episode, feel free to shoot us an email, lovebyfaith info at lovebyfaithministriescom, or DM, whatever, whatever.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Sure, does everyone receive the Holy Spirit? Yes, everyone is able to receive the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Okay, so that song spirit activate? How does, how does an act, how does the holy spirit get activated?

Speaker 1: 5:27

I love it. Holy spirit activate is just like ladies started chanting that. I don't remember the context of that, but I'm gonna go to scripture first on this one yes, please see jesus getting ready to ascend into heaven. Right, he's with the believers. He came back from the dead already we will link this in the description.

Speaker 1: 5:42

He's here acts 1 8. You shall receive power when the holy spirit comes upon you. You shall receive that power when the holy spirit comes on you. They had to wait and pray and receive the holy spirit wait, pray oh, that's a whole word right there yes, wait, pray and receive. Wait, pray and receive amen. Might be a lot more waiting in between. All that maybe, but you shall receive that power. You shall, when the holy spirit comes upon you.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Amen, my experience receiving I'm gonna put air quotes around this. Receiving the holy spirit, more waiting in between, all that Maybe. But you shall receive that power. You shall when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Amen. My experience receiving.

Speaker 2: 6:09

I'm going to put air quotes around this, receiving the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Yes. So from the time I was a child like seven or eight, when we first started going to church, I felt the pool of God sharing things with me, encouraging me, telling me how to be a better, how to live better, how to follow better.

Speaker 2: 6:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:27

I mean from a young age like encouraging me as the Holy Spirit. I didn't know that at the time that that was the Holy Spirit, but I just felt like man. I feel God telling me these things.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Yes. And it wasn't you just identified it as God. Like this, is God telling me do things?

Speaker 1: 6:42

Right and it wasn god. Like this is god telling me do things right. And it wasn't like a scary thing. Yeah, it was just like a god's telling me how to live, how to be all right, how to make it, and that helped me as as as a boy, just walking and being cool and being level-headed and knowing that, hey, this would be all right, and like I remember just so I haven't really dug into this, like thinking about this, yeah, getting into this topic I remember the Holy Spirit moving in me from a young age, from my parents first taking me to church, and knowing this is God and this is what is moving me and how to treat my parents.

Speaker 2: 7:19

I remember him encouraging me how to treat my parents, but you never really said, you never really came to the conclusion. This is the Holy Spirit telling me to do these things. This is just God sharing whenever. Right, okay, so what's the difference then?

Speaker 1: 7:32

And then fast forward to like an adult and I really dedicated my life to Christ, again at 21. I went on a retreat. We had a counter retreat at church.

Speaker 2: 7:41

Okay.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And the whole point of the retreat was to encounter God, to feel the Holy Spirit move in your life and to really embrace it.

Speaker 2: 7:47

Yes.

Speaker 1: 7:48

It was pretty much a no-media retreat. It was real solemn, real chill time to just connect with God, connect with Scripture and be around other believers who were kind of in the same place in their walk as me. And we did that in. At the end of it was a big culminating night of prayer and worship to just connect with God and by the end of that I really felt like the Holy Spirit fire burning in me to because of the connection through all that prayer and worship in one weekend.

Speaker 1: 8:23

It just kind of like really dedicated myself to encountering God and feeling God, and then, from that on, I just felt the Holy Spirit just really saying things to me and giving me clear prophecy words for people and clear visions in my dreams, and it was just a whole different. Like the fire came over me and I wasn't able to get rid of it.

Speaker 2: 8:43

So let me get this straight. You went, so you knew that God was speaking to you from an early age going to church and being involved, telling you how to live life.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:53

And then, when you became an adult, you got into this opportunity where you had a retreat that really focused your time and attention to, specifically, the Holy Spirit. Yes, so by learning about it and by making the space and time in your life to actually just embrace that what you were learning. You then felt the Holy Spirit on you.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Filled me up Yep. Filled you up Yep.

Speaker 2: 9:21

Okay, and so from there, then, you're able to now say, okay, this is the Holy Spirit telling me how to move and how to act, and what to say and what to do.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Right, yep, it was like, okay, I would say it's like a get to know you weekend with the Holy Spirit. Okay, and by the time I came out of that weekend when the Holy Spirit moved in my life, I couldn't miss it. Okay, because I was so on fire the term on fire comes from the fire coming on people in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came down. I felt that on fire for a long time after that and it comes and goes, but it's still pretty much unmissable in my life when I feel that After that baptism of the Holy Spirit, it just never went away.

Speaker 2: 10:07

It never went away it just never went away.

Speaker 1: 10:09

It never went away, and then to call it a baptism was just an individual experience where I felt that Holy Spirit wash over me and completely engulf me and was never the same after that, and so, talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, I feel like I've received that through that experience.

Speaker 2: 10:25

Yeah, that's good. I remember the first time I think I heard God speaking to me Okay, it was in college.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:33

And I was late for class. As usual, I was not like five minutes late. I'm like the entire campus is cleared out, it's 20 minutes into the class and I'm rolling in. Okay, so I'm very late to class. I wasn't expecting to see anybody on the road or in the streets on my way to class and I see one person from the distance coming in my direction and I'm going in their direction.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:58

And I remember specifically hearing from my heart say God bless you to this person.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Okay.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Because they sneezed and I started arguing with this and I'm like that's ridiculous, like I don't even know this person. They're gonna think I'm crazy. We're walking, we're getting closer to each other and I keep hearing it saying say god bless you.

Speaker 1: 11:22

Not bless you, gesundheit none of those like god bless you like the full three words god bless you.

Speaker 2: 11:28

God bless you. And I'm just like I can't do that, like I don't know, I don't know this, I don't know this person, like I'm smoking a cigarette, like they're not going to take me seriously, like I just overthink it so much that they passed me by.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Wow.

Speaker 2: 11:40

And I didn't say it.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Okay.

Speaker 2: 11:41

And then I heard the Holy Spirit again saying there, call out Wow, god bless you Wow. And I didn't do it.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Wow.

Speaker 2: 11:49

I never did it and that always stuck with me because I'm like that was so weird. Yep, that was so weird. Like why did that even happen? Like why was it? What was so important about that that I had to do this? And so, you know, years passed on and I started going to church and I also got into the same encounter weekend, and it was a different time. Kyle was at a different weekend than I was.

Speaker 2: 12:16

But then I started to learn about the Holy Spirit and back then, when I grew up, I thought that the Holy Spirit fell upon you.

Speaker 1: 12:25

You said back then when you grew up what are you talking about?

Speaker 2: 12:27

Childhood teenage, when I used to go to church before college.

Speaker 1: 12:31

So your church, okay, your church experience In my church experience.

Speaker 2: 12:34

I thought the Holy Spirit fell upon you after a series of worship and prayer.

Speaker 1: 12:40

Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:40

I thought, if you prayed hard enough and if you worshiped hard enough, then, out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit would fill the room, everyone would receive it, and then everyone would. You know, basically, while out and just be in the Holy Spirit together. That's what I thought happened, and so I never had that experience until I went to encounter and I realized, like it doesn't fall on you, it lives within you, it comes in, you know, you are baptized into it, you shall.

Speaker 2: 13:06

You know, and then you receive it and it doesn't just like you said, it doesn't just come as a wave, it stays with you. And so I remember feeling that, and then, all of a sudden, all the memories started coming back, of the God bless you memory, and I'm like that was the Holy Spirit. And then thinking back into my teenage years when I was feeling low and I'm like that voice that told me to keep going. That was the Holy Spirit and I started to connect all the dots of like that was the Holy Spirit, that was the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 2: 13:34

So now I have the Holy Spirit, I'm baptized in the Holy Spirit and now I'm on fire, as you said.

Speaker 1: 13:41

I have that excitement.

Speaker 2: 13:43

I have that energy, and now I'm the type of person where I never want to not feel this. So I am constantly, constantly in my prayer, in my worship, in journaling, in everything that I do, I am constantly trying to pursue the whole. I'm being so enveloped by the Holy Spirit because I just want this power to move in my life, through me, and so I'm constantly moving towards that. And so the other thing that I felt when I had the Holy Spirit is I felt my spiritual gifts kind of come to life. I always knew that I was really good at encouraging people. I didn't necessarily know that it was a spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit enhanced and brought more out of me through boldness and through confidence and through the authority of God that I could really encourage somebody, because I'm not doing it out of my own strength, I'm doing it out of Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 14:42

So the Holy Spirit was a big catalyst for your gifts, brought your gifts out stronger and better for your gifts.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Yeah, brought your gifts out stronger and better. It directed my. It directed my career. Okay, it directed how I became a person, what my strengths were. You know they have all those books, strength finders 2.0 and okay, they have all the quizzes and the personality types, and all that stuff. But if you understand the holy spirit, if you understand your spiritual gifts, that are activated through the holy spirit man, that that changes a lot.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Amen.

Speaker 2: 15:10

That changes who you are. That changes what you do. That changes how you help. That helps you understand your purpose. Yeah, that helps you understand your calling Absolutely, and it's just everything started coming together through the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1: 15:21

The Holy Spirit is a guide, is guiding and is a guiding light described as a guiding light and will lead you through all these things.

Speaker 2: 15:28

So good guiding light and will lead you through all these things so good. These are individual stories but, now bringing it together from a relationship point of view and from a marriage standpoint let's see how the Holy Spirit can help one another.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Oh, it's so good. One of the biggest ways I use the Holy Spirit in our relationship as a husband is I lean into the Holy Spirit to help me know how to pray for our family. The Holy Spirit guides us in what we ought to pray for and helps us when we don't know what to pray for. And I definitely know that I lean into the Holy Spirit to understand how to pray for our family, how to pray for you, how to pray for our relationship, how to lean into it and how to guide us to help vision for me, vision for us, vision for our future, and how to share that with you. And really don't move until I don't move, until I feel that Holy Spirit like illuminate the path.

Speaker 2: 16:20

Especially with big decisions, you know, buying a house, having a child, moving changing jobs, you know.

Speaker 1: 16:28

All these things. All these things, the things the holy spirit has clearly, clearly spoken to me when it was time, and I praise god that it wasn't my doing, I didn't, I didn't, just we could. It works that you could sit up and wait all night for the holy spirit, but I was just doing my part, praying and staying faithful, and when the time was right, the holy spirit illuminated to me when it was time to move. That's very important.

Speaker 2: 16:53

That's an important point.

Speaker 1: 16:54

That I waited for the Holy Spirit to illuminate to me that I wasn't begging. The Holy Spirit, yes.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Okay, yes.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Tell me about that. What do you mean?

Speaker 2: 17:02

So I think about King Saul right and I think about in the book. He was the first king for Israel and he had the Holy Spirit on him.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:12

But then there came a point in time when he started to try to take matters into his own hands. For example, should he go to war, Should he do certain things as king? And in order to come up with those decisions he had to wait for the priest, he had to sacrifice. But he couldn't sacrifice in that time because he was not the priest, it was not his job.

Speaker 2: 17:31

So he had to wait for the priest to come and they basically took too long.

Speaker 2: 17:35

And so he took matters into his own hands and he started to wear all the garments and he started to do it himself and he started to try to activate the Holy Spirit in his own time.

Speaker 2: 17:46

And that turned out poorly, terribly, to the point where the Lord took the kingdom from him, and that's where David comes into play. And so, like you said at the very beginning, you know, in Acts there was that three-step process that wait and pray and receive, and I think that there's some truth to that. There's some truth to just waiting, because sometimes people are not good with God's timeline and they're not good with his pace, and so they'll try to force the hand and they'll try to force the Holy Spirit, and so a lot of the times people will manipulate it. You know, I especially see like spouses saying the Holy Spirit told me to do this, but it's coming out of a selfish desire, it's coming out of a selfish need or want and it's not really being activated properly because they decided not to wait. And then that could turn a lot of things in a marriage the wrong way.

Speaker 1: 18:42

The easy litmus test for the Holy Spirit is does it line up with God's word?

Speaker 2: 18:46

Amen.

Speaker 1: 18:46

If it doesn't line up with God's word, you're not being Holy Spirit led.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Is there confirmation through the word?

Speaker 1: 18:51

So that is always the filter that I run it through. Y'all should run it through to really check it, because people can manipulate the Holy Spirit. People can use that word, just throw it around to manipulate what they want.

Speaker 2: 19:04

Yes, the Holy Spirit is very powerful, but I think a lot of the times there are people, individuals and couples alike who truly and I say this with love, but I'm calling to how I see it there's a lot of people out there who do not have a healthy fear of the Lord and they don't have a healthy fear of the Holy Spirit and they think that because they believe and because they read their Bibles and because they're doing due diligence at church that they can access the Holy Spirit at will and their timeline in their power for their gain, and they're not fearing the fact that it has to be the other way around.

Speaker 2: 19:47

You have to surrender yourself, you have to surrender your timeline, you have to surrender your desires to do what the Holy Spirit wants you to do, to say what the Holy Spirit wants you to say, to do it in the timing that he wants you to do it in, and I think a lot of people have it backwards. They have it backwards.

Speaker 1: 21:15

So it's more of a. This is my plan. Lord, bless it instead of Lord. What is your plan, so that I can go and follow it? Yes, so they get it backwards that way.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Yes.

Speaker 1: 21:26

So yeah, you asked me, but I'm going to ask you how do couples use the Holy Spirit for a positive, how do they lean into that?

Speaker 2: 21:33

So again it goes with surrendering. It's making sure that you're on the same page. It's making sure that you're carving out the time and space to seek, to wait and seek. Don't just wait and then complain, but wait and seek. There's action in the waiting.

Speaker 1: 21:49

And since we're in the month of January, I was just going to tell the story, I think. I think let's see where you go.

Speaker 2: 21:55

I'm sorry, we're just in the month of January, we're in a whole new year, 2025. This is considered a milestone year because it ends in the five for some people. And what are you going to do as a couple? What are your goals, what are your plans, what is your vision?

Speaker 1: 22:13

for this year. I think the best is that is that where you know it's not where I thought you were going to go, but keep going.

Speaker 2: 22:16

I think the best thing you can do is ask those types of questions not just to your spouse but with the Holy Spirit in mind, because sure you might want to go on a cruise, or sure you're. This is the year where you guys travel Europe, Okay, or this is the year where you might buy a house, but the Holy spirit might have other plans. God might have other plans for you.

Speaker 2: 22:40

And so if you are sitting at your table and you're mapping out what you want to do maybe you want to get married and you're planning your wedding for 2025 and it's going to be great and awesome but you don't include God in those conversations and you don't surrender to saying you know what, this is what I want. The Holy Spirit, it's your way. Impart inside of you through prayer, through confirmation, through all of the access abilities that you can have to seek and find the Holy Spirit inside of you and your relationship, then you are going to go in circles. You're going to go in debt. It's not going to be right. The doors are going to close, opportunities are going to fail and you're going to be right back the following year wondering what happened and what should we do.

Speaker 1: 23:29

So perfect, perfect, leeway into where I thought you were going.

Speaker 2: 23:34

Okay.

Speaker 1: 23:34

I thought you were going to talk about the Holy Spirit moving in us in the most recent, in the past few weeks, and how we planned out our calendar for the year and how we did all that vision for the year.

Speaker 2: 23:45

We basically well, yeah, that's the solution. I would say and so this is the problem. How can people not do this?

Speaker 1: 23:52

The problem is setting yourself up for failure by not being led by the Holy Spirit, by not letting the Holy Spirit be the guide. Amen, that's the problem.

Speaker 2: 23:58

That's the problem.

Speaker 1: 23:59

The solution, yes, is going slow, praying through it. I always go back to a tiny little book in the Bible called Habakkuk, chapter two, verse two. Write it. Catechic, chapter two, verse two. Write it on paper and make it plain. We sat down this year and we wrote out our whole calendar for the year, everything that God put in our vision for our year and what it's going to look like. It was our first time doing this.

Speaker 2: 24:21

What does that mean? Break it down?

Speaker 1: 24:23

We literally had the 12-month calendar and wrote in everything that we want to do, every idea for a vacation, every idea for our podcast. We wrote out our podcast for the whole year. Yeah, we wrote out our uh, our learning events, our conferences, our vacation time, our family downtime. Yeah, we put in all the, all the planned income, all the planned expenses, to figure out where the dollars and cents were to make all this happen. Because you can't sure we could have a vision that we're going to go on that cruise to italy, which we're not, but anyways one day, but if we don't if we don't have the dollars to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 24:56

That's, that's just a empty goal you have ideas in mind, but then when you cast the vision, when you put it down on paper, right, what your checks are, right, how much your bills look like? Yes, whose birthday is coming when?

Speaker 2: 25:13

what your vacations are what the holidays are, what your budget is for each of these things, then it starts to become very clear where you are and what you should do. And if you still are like, okay, this is what we have left at the end of the year or at the end of each month, and I still want to go on this big.

Speaker 2: 25:33

Italian cruise vacation. Then now you have the goal. Now you're like, okay, we are going to save this many dollars because now we see we're able to and now we're going to work together and now it's going to help us. We want to go on a date every single month, but we can't because of the sitter and how much it costs and all these things. Okay, well, now we see when we're available and now we see how much we can afford. And so far in the Q1 and Q2 season we're only going to go to Starbucks because we can only afford $5 at this moment. That's cool, fine, but at least now you know, and now it's not an excuse.

Speaker 1: 26:10

So the framework looks like this we pray individually, seek the Holy Spirit's guidance. Yes, we pray. We come to the table together, yes, with our answered prayers, with our vision that we feel the Holy Spirit has led us to. We bring it together, we put it on paper in the calendar. Yeah, calendar's going to be in the playbook.

Speaker 2: 26:29

Yes.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Yes, we is going to be in the playbook.

Speaker 2: 26:30

Yes, yes, we're going to make a template, we're going to give you a checklist of everything that you should include in your calendar and possibly some discussion points. Maybe a little prayer prompt in there to help you get going, we're definitely going to add this to the playbook moving forward.

Speaker 1: 26:42

We put it down on paper. Literally. I'm more of a digital type. She's an on paper type.

Speaker 2: 26:48

You can just see it.

Speaker 1: 26:52

You don't have to scroll and look back and forth. I'm able to compromise and just put it on the paper so we put it on the paper on your wall right. They make some awesome, huge ones. I know our pastor uses a huge one. That's like I'm. It's it's big and it covers the whole wall and you can see your whole year in a glance. That's an awesome, awesome tool to use.

Speaker 1: 27:06

They're dry erase so you can reuse it every year yeah and we put everything down and we pray over it and we say, hey, is this really what we want to do? Is this really where we have the gap and we leave room for in March? If God says we're not doing this, we're doing that, we can do it. But if he says, yes, continue on the path that I've set out for you, we can continue. Pray over it. We pray over our goals, we write out our goals, we may complain, and then we march.

Speaker 2: 27:31

I think it's very important, like you said, to emphasize that you know things can happen. You know there are catastrophes and natural disasters and whole lockdowns, you know that we are not even prepared to handle.

Speaker 2: 27:44

But I think when you go at it this way, with a surrendered heart of like, what do you want us to do, what do you want us to put on paper, what do you want us to focus on, then it becomes that much more easier to surrender your goals when your goals aren't met. You surrender your expectations when they're not met and you're able to work together because it's not a you're disappointing me because we didn't meet my goal or I'm disappointing you because I didn't meet your goal, and you're able to focus together on fixing your sights on God and fixing your sights on the Holy Spirit helping you through whatever comes your way, because now you know, okay, it's not up to me, it's up to him, and we're just obedient and we're going to follow suit in that.

Speaker 1: 28:28

Absolutely. I'll finish with this we know that God is in a hundred percent control, thousand percent control. We know that the Holy Spirit is going to do what the Holy Spirit does, regardless of what we put on that paper that it can change.

Speaker 1: 28:39

The fact of the matter is that when we do it and we make the plan and we lean into the Holy Spirit to guide us, we're putting our faith together with his guidance, and so it makes it easier to change and adapt and move and to follow the plan. Now, how it looks, for your relationship might be different.

Speaker 2: 28:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:58

You might be two type B people who just kind of have a couple of post-it notes, just be winging it. Of what your goal is, and that's cool.

Speaker 2: 29:03

Post-it notes are great.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Right, you might be a type A and a type B mix like we have here.

Speaker 2: 29:08

Yeah, and it ends up being the type a person needs it all jotted down.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Kyle used to give me so much pain to sit down and have these meetings and what it comes down to is knowing that the holy spirit is in there. I encourage you to get involved with the holy spirit, knowing holy spirit, loving church that teaches the bible and teaches the bible whole and completely. And the more you're around the believers, the more you're going to feel that Holy Spirit move. The more you're around Holy Spirit filled people, the more you're going to feel that Holy Spirit move. Small groups are great place for this. Praying together as a couple is a great place for this. Beginning of the year is a great time to start a new Bible study. I know I'm doing a Holy Spirit Bible study right now, going through the scriptures to understand and feel that connection with the Holy Spirit. I encourage you to do that in your relationship, in your marriage today, so that God can flow and work and that Holy Spirit vision can be over you guys.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Now we talked a lot in this episode about how the Holy Spirit can move in your life as an individual and how you can use this new season transition to work together with the Holy Spirit to help you vision and cast goals for your life, for your relationship, moving forward.

Speaker 2: 30:23

But throughout this month we are going to continue to dive deeper into how Holy Spirit can help you in your particular relationship, for your specific needs. Knowing what to do when it feels uncomfortable. Knowing what to do when you still have to wait, knowing how you can start loving by faith with the help of the Holy Spirit. So make sure you stay tuned all month long for all of those episodes coming your way. Don't forget to download the couple's playbook. Not only are you going to receive the calendar template for vision casting, but you have, like maybe three, four or five at this point, new resources, and we just continue to keep updating the playbook as we carry on. So make sure you go and get that download. The links are in the description and, before we wrap this up, I would love if Kyle could go ahead and pray us out.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Lord, we are grateful for this time together. We're grateful for your Holy Spirit moving. We thank you that you have made the Holy Spirit part of yourself accessible to us on the daily. We just give you glory. That is not by our power, but it's by yours. We just pray blessings over the marriages and over the relationships and over the individuals who are with us today. We give you glory for all of it In Jesus's name Amen.

Speaker 2: 31:38

Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Make sure you like, share and subscribe if you are watching on YouTube. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple. Please give us that five-star review, along with a review to let other people know how much love by faith has helped you in your relationship. We hope to see you again next week don't just think by faith, love by faith oh, that's a good one. See you guys later. Take care bye did you just come up with that?

Speaker 1: 32:07

I didn't plan that that was nice.

Speaker 2: 32:09

Was that the holy spirit sure?

Speaker 1: 32:11

I'll give him credit because I definitely didn't pre-plan that and it's so easy to give the holy spirit credit on holy spirit.

Speaker 2: 32:18

Holy spirit. What was she doing? Was she, was she doing?

Speaker 1: 32:20

a dance competition.

Speaker 2: 32:21

I have to look it up and I'm gonna find it and try to link it I think it was uh.

Speaker 1: 32:26

Is she getting ready?

Speaker 2: 32:26

to pray.

Speaker 1: 32:27

It was something a lot more. No, something super basic. I don't.

Speaker 2: 32:30

We'll have to check it out, she's going to bake something. People starting their sourdough starters. Holy Spirit activate. Let this rise in the name of Jesus. That's funny.