S03E001, Down Time, Marriage Matters
Andy B and Jo are back for another brand new and improved format of Marriage Matters. In this first episode in this series of Marriage Matters, Andy B and Jo take a look at free time within our marriages – noting the importance of investing time with our spouses.
Andy highlights the importance of quality not quantity when it comes to time we have with each other.
This week, Andy B reads from Ecclesiastes, which talks about there being a time for everything:
The Take Away
Andy
Our children will thank us when we invest time into our marriages as a priority and above time with families.
Jo
We need to prayer and think seriously about the time we have and how to spend it and not let life just happen or let precious time pass us by.
Andy and Jo
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Andy B: And we are back.
[00:00:11] Jo: Yay.
[00:00:11] Andy B: It's Marriage Matters. It's Season Three . It's been a while. I'll be honest, quite a lot has happened.
[00:00:17] Jo: Yeah.
[00:00:18] Andy B: Although this is Marriage Matters, it's worth spending a few minutes talking about some of the changes. Where we've been, what's gone on. And that kind of stuff. There's an advert coming up in 10 minutes.
[00:00:28] So, so here's the thing. Marriage Matters has got a brand new format. So it used to be like 30, 35 minutes, didn't it? And we kind of broke it up, but now we're going for 30 minutes and every segment is 10 minutes.
[00:00:38] Jo: 10. 10. 10. That's 30, isn't it? Yeah. .
[00:00:41] Andy B: Wow. You can see where the kids get their math skills from!
[00:00:44] The idea being that's easier for you to listen in pieces. So rather than needing to listen to a 30 minute thing, you can listen to his 10 minute segment and then another 10, segment 10.
[00:00:54] Jo: You can't say it, can you?
[00:00:55] Andy B: No. Three 10 minute segments.
[00:00:57] Jo: It all seems so simple when we were talking about it [00:01:00] beforehand.
[00:01:00] Andy B: It was easier writing it down. So that's what's happened to Marriage Matters.
[00:01:01] We have been away since, Ooh, September, October.
[00:01:04] Jo: Yeah. So we haven't done a Marriage Matters in 2023. So this is the first
[00:01:08] Andy B: Yes.
[00:01:09] Jo: Of 2023
[00:01:10] Andy B: And a lot has happened, I'll be honest, since we actually had a little pause. We were having a little pause at the end of a Season and then all sorts of really good things happened.
[00:01:17] The other thing that I wanted to just talk about in this first segment is the website has changed. Which is really important for you, because it's much better for you, if you are listening and watching. So Marriage Matters is mostly an audio podcast.
[00:01:29] Jo: Yeah.
[00:01:30] Andy B: And you can also watch, but BerryBunch.family was our website address, which still works.
[00:01:36] Jo: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Andy B: But now there's BerryBunch.Org, which is a new Fal website that we launched at the start of the year, which is actually very exciting because it means it's really super easy for you to view a video, to download one to your computer. Everything we make is free for you to use. If you want to use this in your church marriage guidance group, you can download a video and play it.
[00:01:54] Jo: Yeah.
[00:01:54] Andy B: And it'll be high quality and there'll be no adverts.
[00:01:57] Jo: Yeah. Brilliant!
[00:01:57] Andy B: We've worked in ministry, we've worked in churches. We know [00:02:00] what adverts do, to destroy the atmosphere. So if you download from our website, one, it's really easy to do. Mm-hmm. . And the second thing is it's really good quality.
[00:02:08] Jo: Yes. So should we get on with our theme of this?
[00:02:10] Andy B: Yes.
[00:02:11] Jo: And it is, it's, this is your idea, so I'm gonna leave it to you to explain what it's all about. Downtime, isn't it? Downtime, which is time that you have down.
[00:02:21] Andy B: Yes. Do you know what's really good? 'Cos we do, we do lots of radio work now, which is kind of exciting, but it means that when I go for a mug, I know that Jo's gonna talk. 'Cos when we started doing the radio, I didn't know if Jo was gonna pick up the, I actually need to drink. Whereas now if I go for a drink, I don't have to say, keep talking, 'cos I know she's going to, it's super exciting! KonnectRadio.com. Every Sunday, three till six. And I cover lots of other shows as well.
[00:02:42] So downtime. Now we have covered lots on the idea of Date Night.
[00:02:48] We've talked about the idea of being together as a couple. And if you wanna go back, look at the old episodes, listen to them, go off and do that. There's a specific one we did called date night. Now this is not about, this is not like rehashing Date Night.
[00:02:59] [00:03:00] This is something different because this is. Like an all-encompassing topic, because when you're thinking about downtime, it can mean lots of things. It can mean date night, but it can also mean sitting down at the end of the day having ameal.
[00:03:11] Jo: Yeah.
[00:03:11] Andy B: Because that's downtime. And, what does downtime mean to you?
[00:03:14] So the first thing I wanted to do, is I wanted to kind of define what we're talking about in terms of, let's, let's just use the phrases, uptime and downtime. . So, just 'cos it's, it's
[00:03:23] Jo: You're just making this stuff up.
[00:03:24] Andy B: Well, I normally do. So uptime is your work. It's all the things that you have to do. So it's working, it's paying your taxes, is going to the tip. Things that have to be done that you wouldn't necessarily choose to do, but you have to do, if you wanna buy.
[00:03:39] Jo: Yeah.
[00:03:39] Andy B: And then everything else, for the purpose of this next 30 minutes is downtime.
[00:03:43] Jo: Yeah.
[00:03:44] Andy B: It's the time that you actually have to choose what you want to do.
[00:03:47] Jo: So you say rest time, relaxing time, or just free time.
[00:03:51] Andy B: Yeah, but we titled it downtime now!
[00:03:52] Jo: Oh yeah. But you know, I was just trying to explain it.
[00:03:54] Andy B: Well, you know.
[00:03:55] Jo: Free time, isn't it. Time that's, that's yours that's free.
[00:03:58] Andy B: Yes.
[00:03:58] Jo: Available. [00:04:00] Space.
[00:04:00] Andy B: Yes. , but it's, it's those restful times, and actually, what we are thinking about this week, obviously this is Marriage Matters, everything we do is looking at the idea of a Bible based marriage. A marriage from God's perspective.
[00:04:11] What, what's God's perspective on downtime. And we wanted to look at these, the, some of the, the struggles that married couples will have. How much time do you spend in a church. How much time are you doing in ministry? Are you there every night helping out with the youth group? And you're there with the men's, with the men's group on a Saturday morning and, and you're painting the church, and then your wife sat at the ladies' group, and you know, there's all these groups we can get involved in and that's really good. But church is not as important as a marriage! And I think that's something we need to say, and I will keep on saying it.
[00:04:40] Jo: Yeah, we, we've got some scriptures later on to talk about time. But you know,
[00:04:43] Andy B: Yes.
[00:04:43] Jo: When you become a Christian, your time isn't yours, is it? It it belongs to God. So we pray about things in life, but maybe sometimes we don't pray enough for our downtime and we just sort of go, oh, great, I'm free. I'll do whatever.
[00:04:54] Andy B: We do it with money, don't we?
[00:04:56] Jo: We should pray about everything really.
[00:04:57] Andy B: We've got the money, we can afford it. So I'll buy that. [00:05:00] Did God want you to do that? If you haven't got the money you're gonna pray, Lord, I want to do this. Is this your will? If you have the money, it's easy to say, well, I've got the money, therefore it must be God's will. But that's really foolish!
[00:05:10] Jo: Suppose it's the same with if you've got time, you think, oh, I'll just do this or that, but actually hang on, hold the phone, let's, let's check in with God and find out what God wants us to do. We wouldn't go into any job without praying. Is this the right job? Is this the right location to live in?
[00:05:22] Andy B: Yep.
[00:05:23] Jo: And so the same is any downtime that we have. You know, time is precious, isn't it!
[00:05:28] if
[00:05:29] Andy B: you can't do everything. That means that you can only do some things.
[00:05:32] Jo: Yeah.
[00:05:33] Andy B: If you can only do some things, then those, some things needs to be carefully selected.
[00:05:39] Jo: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Andy B: And if you need to select what you do with those some things that you can do need to do. That means going to God.
[00:05:45] Jo: Yeah.
[00:05:45] Andy B: And not saying I've got an evening free, I'll do that.
[00:05:47] Jo: Yeah.
[00:05:47] Andy B: And actually, let's just touch on when you become a Christian, your time is not yours. Because we glanced over that one, like a skimming stone. I think , I'm gonna circle back because this is another really interesting one.
[00:05:59] I remember a church [00:06:00] where the vicar basically expected every single person in that church to be at the church every single night, as much as they could to help them make the church work. And the problem is that's a really stupid mentality. Because if you are a vicar, we've been in ministry, we weren't, we weren't vicars, but we were in ministry, your job is being in a church, serving at the church.
[00:06:17] But if your job is not paid for by the church, then you need to look at it slightly differently. And actually, the, the sad thing was, this vicar expected everyone to turn up like he did. But he was paid to be there and it was their free time, their ,downtime, their rest time. And I think it's worth just touching on that. Because when you become a Christian, Jo said, your time is not your own.
[00:06:37] I had this long conversation with somebody and I, I, I really agreed with their point 'cos we talked about volunteers 'cos that was the last church. And he said, there's no such thing as a volunteer in a church, or there shouldn't be. Because when you commit your life, your life to Jesus Christ, you are getting peace on this earth. You're getting heaven in the next life and actually, therefore, in, in this life, there's a, there's a consequence to that. And we should be giving our time to God. And actually, he [00:07:00] said, we shouldn't be using the word volunteer in church.
[00:07:02] And I absolutely agree with that by the way. The word volunteer is very misleading in a, in a, in a church context. Because if that's your church, your spiritual home, which is the biblical version, you should be committed to being there and being part of that congregation. Now that flies against the face of everything Western, alright? So we, we, we have to acknowledge that that's not culturally comfortable, but that is the biblical way and the biblical culture, it's got nothing to do with west or east or capitalism or communism, or rich or poor. The biblical culture is God's standard, which existed way before all this stuff happened.
[00:07:36] Jo: Yeah.
[00:07:37] Andy B: So if you are in a church, you need to lose that mentality of I'm just a volunteer. Because you're really, really not. You are not less important than the vicar. Anymore than he's more important than you. As one very wise minister once pointed out, it's about your function. And the function of a vicar is they're paid in order to be freed up ,in order to have the time.
[00:07:54] Jo: Yeah.
[00:07:55] Andy B: If you are not paid for the church, you're not freed up therefore you need to choose your time differently.
[00:07:58] Jo: Yeah. Time is precious. [00:08:00] I was thinking about you know, oftentimes, young people will say you know, what was important to me for my parents were spending time with me. You know, we often think, well, I wanna give my children what they didn't have, and stuff, but time makes people feel valuable.
[00:08:15] And coming back to marriages, if you take the time to be with your partner, with your, your wife, your husband your, your, your girlfriend or boyfriend, if you spend that time together you know, that's, that's, that, you're valuing that person, aren't you? And that's, that's the point of, of downtime, isn't it? Together as a, as a couple.
[00:08:34] Andy B: Yeah, I, I, I scrolled through. I was doing a bit of an experiment, I scrolled through Instagram recently. I wanted to get to about 150 videos. I dunno why. I just wanted to see what is the stuff that's coming, that's coming up on the screen. And what was fascinating were the number of jokes about marriages, which is really sad. it was always very critical.
[00:08:49] But there was this recurring theme and it was always very negative around marriages. And it was always, the husband trying to escape to his golf. And the wife trying to escape for a boozy night out with her [00:09:00] friends. And how they didn't wanna be together and hang together.
[00:09:02] Jo: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Andy B: And the other one that was really sad was they're both sitting on a set next to each other, sending each other videos to watch and never actually turning and talking.
[00:09:10] Jo: Yeah.
[00:09:10] Andy B: And I don't think that's funny. And I think it's really sad because I think it's probably quite true. When you see enough of those, you start to think people are actually thinking this way, aren't they? And I think that's quite tragic. That's what we wanna look at today.
[00:09:24] How are we gonna support your marriage?
[00:09:25] What are you gonna do? What do you want to invest in marriage today?
[00:09:28] How are you, how important is your relationship with your husband, with your wife before God?
[00:09:33] How much time do you wanna invest into that?
[00:09:34] We'll take a little break.
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[00:11:12] Jo: Welcome back to the second part of Marriage Matters, the theme being downtown, I keep saying town downtime.
[00:11:21] Andy B: We're not singing downtown. It's not a Motown hit.
[00:11:25] Jo: We, we talked a bit about, we, we said our hellos 'cos we've been away for a while and, and we've sort of talked a little bit about what downtime is. So now let's talk about
[00:11:35] Andy B: Why is it so hard to say?
[00:11:36] Jo: I don't know, the two don't go well. Yeah, so now let's just look at the scripture, look at what the Bible says, talk about our own experiences. That's the purpose of Marriage Matters, just to remind you that marriage matters, and that's why we, we, we talk about it and we want our marriages to be improved. We know people go on marriage courses, read books and things, and this is really to help us, and encourage us, to keep moving [00:12:00] forward and thinking about the time that we spend when we are not working, when we haven't gotta do other things. When we've got a bit of free time, how do we do that as a couple? That's what we're looking at. So what have we. In terms of scripture?
[00:12:13] Andy B: We've got Ecclesiastes. This is a really well-known one. I mean, if you are, if you've been at Primary School in the last 50 years, you're gonna know this bit of scripture cause it's, it's really popular, for good and bad reasons. But this is Ecclesiastes Chapter three. This is the English Standard Version, just 'cos that's what I've got on my phone at the moment and I can't be bothered to move it to something else. It doesn't change the point of it.
[00:12:35] For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. [00:13:00] A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to tear, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
[00:13:29] Jo: Oh, wow.
[00:13:30] Andy B: Which kind of sums it up. Now, not all of that is particularly pertinent to exactly what we're talking about, the topic today. But there are a few that kind of naturally jump out aren't there. The fact is there is, everything has a season. There's a time for every thing. It doesn't mean to say everything needs to happen, but everything has its place. Everything has its time and that includes the time you spend with your spouse. And it depends your attitude towards that, which is really important.
[00:13:55] Do you begrudgingly, I'll sit and watch a film with them. At least they'll be happy I'm with them. [00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Jo: Yeah.
[00:14:00] Andy B: That's, that's not time. That's, that's not, you know, we, we, when we're talking about marriages and God's perspective, we want to invest into our marriages. Because if we don't, they just shrivel up. You know, watering watering your plants is important. Watering your marriage is important. We water our marriages best with time commitment, investment.
[00:14:17] Jo: Yeah.
[00:14:17] Andy B: Now the other one was right down the bottom.
[00:14:22] Jo: Still in Ecclesiastes?
[00:14:23] Andy B: Still in Ecclesiastes! A time to keep silent and a time to speak. Now, one of the most wonderful things, feelings, experiences I've, I've ever known is in silence, just sitting with Jo, my wife, my best friend. We don't say anything, not because we're in a mood and we've had an argument, and we're silent. I mean, literally, we are happy in a good place. And yet we don't have to say anything. That is really, really precious to me, because she's the one person in the world that I don't feel like I need to communicate to vocally, in order to communicate with her. So just sitting, sometimes we'll [00:15:00] take a flask of tea, we'll drive out to the sea, we'll sit by the sea with a flask of tea saying nothing, just watching the waves. And those moments are already precious because you don't need to have communication, verbally, in order to have communication and investing into your marriage. So, hence, a time to keep silence and a time to speak. 'Cos at some point I shall say, shall we go home now?
[00:15:20] Alright. A time to love and a time to hate. Now, we're not suggesting that you should have a time to hate what the Bible is saying is there are times when we are gonna hate people. God doesn't want war either, the next verse, verse eight, the second half of verse eight. You know, He doesn't want war. But there is a time for war. War is gonna happen.
[00:15:35] You look out to Ukraine. You look at all sorts of places. In some ways in the UK we are at war with one another. I don't say that lightly, loosely, or in a kind of, you know, jocular way. I think we are at war because the Christian nuclear family is at, is under attack. There are lots of people who want to attack that. We are at war. And as Christians we should expect to have trouble and strife. Not to accept that we have it, but we should [00:16:00] expect to have it. Big difference.
[00:16:01] So there's a, there's a time to keep silence, there's a time to speak, there's a time to live and a time to hate. And actually, as Christians, as, as a married couple, we need to invest in our marriage 'cos if we don't invest our downtime, all we end up with is passively sitting on the settee, a bit like the joke that I sadly keep on seeing where this couple are just sending videos to one another and never communicating. And that's just really sad.
[00:16:22] Jo: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, the problems we have with modern societies is we don't have a lot of time. I've spoken to different couples and they're working sort of opposite shifts to sort of bring the money in. And, and so time is of the essence, isn't it? There's very little time.
[00:16:36] And the other problem is, perhaps, you have things that you want to do, whether there's games you play or sports you do, or, or certain activities that you wanna do that don't include your, your other half, that can be difficult as well. Or perhaps you don't have the same. Things that you enjoy doing. So it's, it's about compromise as well. So there's, there's the issue of not having much time, so precious time that you have, you wanna spend it well. Or [00:17:00] everybody wants a piece of your time, don't you? Family members you know, friends, all kinds of things that come in.
[00:17:05] But also there's the fact that, actually, what if you don't particularly like the same things, the same TV programs or you know, activities. So those, those are sort of questions to ask, aren't they?
[00:17:14] Andy B: Yeah, I, I mean, you know, there's nothing wrong with having different interests. That's good. That's healthy, that's righteous, that's appropriate.
[00:17:20] Jo: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Andy B: Golf is a joke that I keep on seeing. You know, the husband's kind of sneaking out, trying and playing golf, and lying to his wife about where he is, so we can get his golfing. I mean, if you're in that state in a marriage you're already in a bigger mess than you really wanna think about, but never irredeemable with God. But it's good to support each other in different interests and activities. But then how'd you do it if all your downtime is only ever spent playing golf or going shopping, and I'm, I'm using the stereotypes in these videos I'm looking at, then your marriage really is gonna be not in a great place.
[00:17:51] And it's not about the amount of time either. I think that's another interesting point.
[00:17:54] It's not about I've got 15 hours, I'm gonna spend every single second with my wife or my husband. That may not be the most [00:18:00] appropriate for you personally. But actually, of the time that you've got, how do you invest it?
[00:18:04] Is it just liberally whilst sitting watch TV? That, that's not really investing in your marriage, that's just, that's not, that's the absence of investing. That's just wasting time. Nothing wrong with films. We love films as a family. We watch many, but we actively watch films, because we get involved with the film, with each other, with fun and talking about it. And also because it's not all that we do.
[00:18:24] And actually, how are you gonna invest the time that you do have? You don't need to have 10 hours a day with your spouse to build the marriage, okay? If you've only got 10 minutes a day that you have spare, we've been in those times, what's that 10 minutes gonna look like for you?
[00:18:38] For us, if it's only 10 minutes, then we invest that in each other because that's super important. But if you fritter that 10 minutes away, it can easily be lost.
[00:18:46] Jo: So you are talking about quality rather than quantity?
[00:18:49] Andy B: Yeah.
[00:18:50] Jo: And then that is important, isn't it? Yeah. And we can have small amounts of time and it could be something really, really memorable. You can build incredible memories from a very short [00:19:00] amount of fun. You could just have a silly sort of game. Something comes up. But sometimes we can have our time together and sometimes, you know, you talked about in the pandemic couples were together a long time and then arguments happen, didn't they?
[00:19:11] But you know, as a couple, how much time you, you, you want to spend or can spend, and how you spend that. But, but you need to pray and think about it and make sure that's what you're, and it, it makes me think about when you first meet someone and you're courting oftentimes you, you will take part in, in the activities they enjoy going watch 'em play football or this and that. And then when you get married, it's like,
[00:19:32] Andy B: No thanks.
[00:19:33] Jo: May not, may not happen quite so much, but you do get couples who play golf together you know, play football together. Or they'll just support, like you say, support each other in those activities. But it's nice to also find what an activity that you both can do.
[00:19:47] So it's worth sort of play, having a play to have a go at different things, isn't it? We, we did crazy golf, didn't we, the other week. And that was fun. Good fun. Crazy golf's cool!
[00:19:57] Yeah, I
[00:19:58] Andy B: think it comes down to this, this idea [00:20:00] of what do you want to do with the time that you have for the person that you are staying, stating, declaring your love until death relationship for.
[00:20:09] If they've got a real passion. I read a wonderful story. It was Jay Parker who has a blog, Hot, Holy, and Humorous, and her husband was, it's probably the wrong sport, I'm English. He was into a big sport. Was it American football, baseball? I dunno. One of those. And she didn't really have that passion. But she actually tried to spend time with her husband by enjoying his passion and discovered, actually, she got very passionate about that too, to the point that she's actually, I think, become more passionate than her husband about his team.
[00:20:34] And that can happen, because when we show interest in the other person, all of a sudden we, we engage and we invest in that and it's really, really good.
[00:20:40] Jo: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:20:41] Andy B: So we're coming up to another break. We're sticking to 10 minutes.
[00:20:43] Jo: Yes.
[00:20:43] Andy B: We're good at this now.
[00:20:44] Jo: Well done.
[00:20:45] Andy B: So, yeah. Here's another video. If you wanna, how to support us on what you can do to keep us doing what we're doing then this will help you.
[00:20:53] : Well, hello, there, this is Andy and Jo from the BerryBunch. And we wanted to talk to you a little bit about who we are and where we are going as a [00:21:00] ministry, which is kind of exciting. So we are far more than just the five people you will frequently see on your screens, whether that's mobiles, lap laptops, tablets, or TVs, whatever.
[00:21:11] We're all over the place with social medias. But we are far bigger than just the five of us. Actually. We are part of a massive family who support the BerryBunch and make it happen, from all around the world, including Tibet. I was quite surprised by that. Tibet North America, all over the place, Scotland, who knew, Essex in the, in England. We're English too so that counts.. Where we got fin.
[00:21:33] Jo: Wow.
[00:21:34] Andy B: Norway. There's, there's people who are part of this from far afield, so it's not just about us five people.
[00:21:38] Jo: Yeah.
[00:21:38] Andy B: And we actually have some't called the Council of Elrond, which is a group of people who help advise the BerryBunch Ministry 'cos it's much bigger than we are!
[00:21:44] Jo: Yeah. And if you'd like to support us and get involved, there are three things we were thinking that you could do.
[00:21:49] You can share or like what we do.
[00:21:51] Andy B: Super important.
[00:21:52] Jo: Yeah. And, and, and get in touch with us, encourage us, and tell us what you think.
[00:21:56] You can financially support us, if you felt that was right. [00:22:00] And we do have supporters that support us that way. Cause obviously,
[00:22:02] Andy B: And we've got Pay Pal. or Patreon.
[00:22:04] Jo: Yeah, absolutely. So you can pay in different ways and we have people who, who, who do that because obviously we want to provide this for free, and buy the books as well.
[00:22:13] Andy B: Cheesy Link.
[00:22:13] Jo: Yeah, 'cos we, there's nothing worse than going to a website and you want to get something, and you have to then pay for it. There's these, like, pay walls that get in the way, aren't there? We're not gonna do that. Not here at BerryBunch!
[00:22:23] And the last thing that you could do and, and I think the most important is to pray.
[00:22:28] Andy B: Always the biggest thing you can do is to pray, for what we're doing.
[00:22:30] We've seen some amazing opportunities, some massive miracles at Godstone for our Ministry and for this Ministry that's actually extending all around the globe, which is kind of cool.
[00:22:38] Jo: Yeah.
[00:22:38] Andy B: From a little bedroom one time, that's grown. So yeah. Become part of the BerryBunch family community.
[00:22:43] Jo: Yeah.
[00:22:43] Andy B: We will talk back to you, not at you, but with you. It's always good. But yeah, get involved, get in touch and become part of the community, and what God is doing through this thing that He has in honored us with with doing, which is awesome.
[00:22:55] Jo: Yeah.
[00:22:56] Andy B: And [00:23:00] we're back. The meaty, no, the Take Away.
[00:23:09] Jo: Take Away.
[00:23:10] Andy B: The Take Away. We've made a few tweaks and I'm trying to remember myself. The other thing, by the way, about supporting us, is you can do all of that through our website, BerryBunch.Org. You don't have to leave the website anymore, which is awesome. BerryBunch.Org. Look for Support Us and you can, you can help us on that page.
[00:23:25] So we've been talking today about downtime. How do you quantify downtime? What does that look like to you? For every one of us is different. We don't have any kind of separate activities that we would go off and do the, take large amounts of time. So we don't have that particular thing, or challenge to work out. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you do.
[00:23:43] If you are into golfing, if you are into shopping with the girls, as the stereotypes go, then great. Nothing wrong with that. But how do you invest in your marriage? You can't do everything. Therefore, we can only do some things. If we can only do some things. What those, some things are need taking to God.
[00:23:57] Don't ever assume I've got lots of money there for, [00:24:00] I'll just do this because, well, that's the right thing to do. You shouldn't spend your money that way. You should pray about it.
[00:24:04] And you shouldn't spend your that way. Cause we need to think how are we gonna spend the time that.
[00:24:10] Jo: Yeah, they say time is money. It just goes to show the value and, and preciousness of time. And how much it means to someone that you spend time. I mean you think about someone who goes and visits someone at hospital, and takes that time to be there, that's very precious. And so if you are working hard on long hours, and you choose to spend time with your wife or husband, that's gonna make them feel really valued and really special.
[00:24:32] And of course we have special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. I mean, I don't know whether you do celebrate Valentine's Day. Some people go big time on it and you, you have the archetypal jokes about poor blokes, the night before, or on the same day having forgotten Valentine's Day and things like that. We've seen many a program like that. We're not that bothered,
[00:24:51] Andy B: I've seen many in reality of that.
[00:24:52] Jo: When we first got married, first were together, we did sort of, you know, do Valentine's Day. But we're not so bothered now. [00:25:00] We try and, you know, do something special on not any day of the week really, isn't it? Yeah. But you know, obviously if it's special to you, and it's something that you've chosen to do, then that's another time, isn't it? Special occasions. We get time off during those times. Bank holiday and things like that.
[00:25:16] So yeah, we get times to be together. And if you choose to be with your wife or or husband, that is really precious, isn't it?
[00:25:23] Andy B: Yep. And here's another one, which I thought was relevant to talk about in this third segment. 'Cos I was thinking about the, there's seasons of marriage.
[00:25:30] Jo: Yeah.
[00:25:31] Andy B: Okay. If, if children is something that God blesses you with, not everyone is gonna be blessed with children, then actually there's a fairly simple kind of rhythm where you get married, generally there's a period of time when there's no children. Then children are likely to come along. So you've got maybe up to, you know, 25 years worth of having children in the house, by the time the last one's likely to leave, go off to university, get a job, whatever. And then what is, I don't like the phrase, empty nesting, it just sounds, sounds, it sounds really horrid.
[00:25:59] Anyway, [00:26:00] you have this period when the children aren't there, and if you're not investing in your marriage, consistently, all the way through that time, when the children leave, there's no marriage. And we've met too many couples where as soon as the children leave one poor soul, literally the, the one of the kids turned 18 and the dad said, right, I'm leaving now I haven't been married to mum for the last 20 years, but we just thought we'd stick around for you.
[00:26:22] Absolutely devastated the family, because then they couldn't be, leave them for anything. No trust.
[00:26:27] So actually, if you're not investing in your marriage throughout, then there's nothing left at the end. So don't think we've got kids. That's where every single moment of our time and energy needs to go. Your children will not thank you if you've got a bad marriage 'cos all you've done is invest in them. Your children want to see you have a good marriage. And here's the reason why it's really important.
[00:26:48] They want to aspire to something, alright. And if you have a crappy marriage, where you only ever invest in the kids, and you never go out for date night, you don't hold hands, you don't kiss in front of your kids 'cos they don't [00:27:00] like it, what on earth example are you setting for your children, or for other people's children?
[00:27:05] Okay, so I used to hang around with some people when I was little. And so I had some surrogate dads, which are great. And one of 'em, they didn't have children for a while and it didn't make a difference because they were so loving with each other. I, I wanted a marriage like they had, because they lived out their love for one another.
[00:27:22] They had very different hobbies and interests. He was a biker, good man! That's not something his wife particularly wanted to be involved in, so they had times away. But they, you knew that they loved each other. And when they were eventually blessed with children, by God, it was amazing to see how they were as parents.
[00:27:36] But if you don't invest in your marriage, please don't wait until your kids leave. I've seen too many marriages where everything is about the children. We've gotta get 'em to this group, and that group, and they need to have this.
[00:27:48] All your children want to see is you, well their parents loving each other.
[00:27:54] Jo: Yeah.
[00:27:55] Andy B: That is the best example you can give. Not getting into every single activity under the sun, [00:28:00] blogging yourself silly to make it happen. Yeah. They will appreciate more and marriage that they would wanna aspire to more. Than a family where they get to do whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want to do it.
[00:28:11] Jo: Yeah. Is, is this the bit where we sort of say what we're taking away from this subject?
[00:28:16] Andy B: Yes.
[00:28:17] Jo: And, and I was just thinking it is making me really think, because I think sometimes we don't really plan our downtime. It sort of comes upon us, even though we know we're about to finish work and have this free time and we sort of, we end up talking a lot together, don't we? But I wonder actually, we need to pray a bit more to do something more proactive rather than, reactive. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah.
[00:28:37] Because I mean, we have done, we've, we've talked about date nights, but actually downtime. I wonder if, for me, the takeaway, I'm thinking, I'd like to go away and think about that time and maybe you be a bit more proactive rather than it just sort of falls into our lap and we just kind of do stuff.
[00:28:52] I mean, spontaneity's great, isn't it? And I absolutely love that! But I think we, yeah, we that's what I'm taking away. I'm gonna go away [00:29:00] and think about how I can be more active in my downtime.
[00:29:03] Andy B: I think, also, there's nothing wrong with planning spontaneity. It is less backwards than it sounds.
[00:29:09] Jo: Yeah.
[00:29:09] Andy B: But if you plan a period of time, which is protected.
[00:29:12] Jo: Yeah.
[00:29:12] Andy B: So the classic will be a weekend away with the wife. . Going out for a meal out and getting a babysitter. Now those are planned times 'cos you're not just gonna get a babysitter and go out for a meal. You're probably gonna book a table. You're gonna have to book someone to come into your house and look after your children.
[00:29:25] If you're going away for a weekend, you're gonna have to make sure that someone's got your children or, or the dogs being fed, or your milk isn't gonna get left. And doorstep. There are things you do that you plan for, and you invest in that time. But that should be no different for day to day.
[00:29:39] And I think it's, it's one of those things where, perhaps, one of the, one of the things I think for me is it's, it's thinking more those downtimes, I think it's similar to you. My takeaway is, downtime kind of happens. You get tired, you get to the end of the day and you're exhausted, you fall down, you have a meal, you collapse on the set, you stick a film on , fall asleep, go to bed. That's not really [00:30:00] investing in a relationship. That's just life happening to you. But we need to be just as proactive in our downtime as we are in our uptime, the work time, things we have to do.
[00:30:11] And actually we don't really value. You know, don't take for granted the time that you've got.
[00:30:15] Please don't, don't take for granted your money. That's more of a given, but don't take your time forgiven either. Don't take your, in my case, my wife for given because, for granted, because actually I don't have all the time that I don't want with her. She's changed jobs. She works more hours than she used to. She's not at home as like she used to. So I don't get the time that I used to get. So in some ways I'm in a, in a season where I actually do value having time withyou. But it could go the other way, I have more time with you, and all of a sudden it seems less important.
[00:30:40] Jo: Yeah. I'm, I'm, the, the phrase that's coming to my mind is investing time. And, and I think that's really important, isn't it? We invest an awful lot to get good careers, to get better money, to, to have status, to have position but we need to invest in our marriages and our relationships, to improve our marriage, and to [00:31:00] improve our witness. And, like you say, we have a knock on effect on the children and people around us and, and then we have a much better life and, and a great time. And God, it will be pleased with us.
[00:31:09] Andy B: Okay, last 90 seconds. Here's my thought.
[00:31:11] Jo: Okay. Yep.
[00:31:12] Andy B: So don't invest in your family so much that you don't invest in your marriage, that your children have nothing to look forward to. If you want your children to get married because you think marriage is good, invest in your marriage. Your marriage is always more important than your children.
[00:31:25] Now, when you've got a breastfeeding baby, it doesn't become irrelevant, but that breastfeeding child's gonna need more of your time. But that's a season that comes and goes. Maybe for a year or so, maybe, maybe two years. But then that fades that, you know, that disappears.
[00:31:38] Your children never become less important. I've had four children, I've lost one. She's just important as the three lads that we get to be with, and it doesn't change. Here's the thing for me, this is the real takeaway. Invest in your marriage with, the time that you've got, so that people who see you want a marriage like yours.
[00:31:55] I don't wanna have a marriage like many that I see where, the children come first, [00:32:00] because those are the houses I wanna get away from because I'm exhausted. Invest in your marriage so people come and see your marriage and think I want that. 'Cos here's the other thing, as Christians. This marriage, whole thing, it shines a light on our relationship with Jesus Christ. So if you want people to find Jesus, focus on your marriage, not your kids. They should always come second.
[00:32:21] Jo: This is serious stuff, isn't it?
[00:32:22] Andy B: This is really serious stuff. Doesn't mean your kids don't matter. It doesn't mean to say if you're breastfeeding that you shouldn't do that. It means your marriage still has to come first. It still has to be the most important thing, because it's the reason anything happens thereafter.
[00:32:33] Jo: Yeah.
[00:32:34] Andy B: Thanks for joining us for another one. We'll be back next week for more.
[00:32:37] Jo: Yeah.
[00:32:37] Andy B: Anything you wanna add? 10 seconds?
[00:32:39] Jo: No. I can't think of anything else.
[00:32:41] Andy B: 10 seconds is ages, isn't it? Thanks for joining us.
[00:32:45] Do feel free to comment. Email us. You can do that all through the website, BerryBunch.Org.
[00:32:49] Stay cool.
[00:32:50] Bye for now.[00:33:00]