Life can be full of challenges!
Sometimes it is the difficulty of making, what should be, a really simple decision. But, with age, comes wisdom. And with wisdom comes arrogance. Without God’s intervention, we’d be doing life on our own. Wait, don’t we do that anyway?
The good news for those of us who love Jesus, is that when He died, rose and again and ascended to Heaven, Jesus didn’t leave us on our own to figure things out.
Andy B and Jo jump right in with Song of Songs, the book in the bible all about marriage. And in this book, we are warned more than once – ‘Do not awaken love before it’s time’.
This is a gentle way of telling us about intimacy in relationships and the best time to awake this kind of love is when we are married.
Find out why this is important as Andy B and Jo discuss intimacy in and out of marriage.
We all have ways of coping with difficulties and stress of life. That goes for the good stuff too.
We, each of us, have ways of processing what comes our way each and every day.
But, sometimes, the daily grind have a negative effect on our ability to cope with the very things we ‘know’ we should be able to easily deal with.
After a small mishap, when a pair of woollen gloves tried to take on the heat of a tumble dryer, and lost, Andy B started thinking about a much older memory of a very expensive cardigan that suffered the same, inevitable, outcome.
And, much like what happened to those woollen gloves, mistakes happen.
But, with God, the Good News is that we can’t mistake ourselves away from God. Because the very nature of Gods to redeem our mistakes.
As a Stay-At-Home-Dad for more than 15 years I’ve thoroughly loved everything with caring for my family and our home.
But since catching Covid a little over a month ago, discovering an issue with my heart, getting through a lung infection and adjusting to a whole host of medication to keep me healthy until the heart issue can be resolved, it has taken a lot out of me.
The most challenging part is being on blood thinners. Because there is so much I can’t do, or need to seriously question whether I should do that, or not.
So this is one of Andy B’s extended 2 minute videos. But, after a hellish November, and nearly 6 weeks with no filming anything, it seems fitting!
As people, we want to control the situations around us, to make us safe. But we also have to learn, as we mature, to be able to discern which battles we should enter, and which battles we simply need to accept. Not accepting them in terms there is nothing we can ever do about it. But accepting that there are some battles we just need to leave to one side.
And the Bible tells us not to be anxious. But, it also tells us that, when we are anxious, we are go to God.
In this week’s episode of Marriage Matters, Andy and Jo are focusing on communication in marriage – healthy communication, misunderstandings, and arguments – the good, the bad and the ugly!
Let’s be honest, we all make mistakes, say the wrong thing, raise our voices and so on…join Andy and Jo as they share their experiences; being honest about an incident involving a cushion!
This week is wrapped around scripture to keep us on the right track when it comes to communicating with our spouses, starting with wholesome, healthy, good communication – a very good place to start – and end!
Andy and Jo are not afraid to admit that things go wrong in marriages, that they have misunderstood one another from time to time – it happens!
Andy and Jo are thinking about how 2 become one, 2 halves make a whole, 2 become one flesh, 1 + 1 = 1, or is it 2 + 1 = 5? You will just have to join Andy and Jo to find out what this maths is all about!
To put it more simply, when making a marriage commitment, you go from being just you and from this Day Forward, as they say, you are a couple, a pair, married persons.
What does this mean for us as individuals?
Go Deeper with Andy B, as he looks at 2 Corinthians 13:11, which explains that we need to grow up as Christians in maturity, love, peace, and in unity with other Believers.
Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced!
Explore with us as we wrap up this season with our special finale, ‘Finally, Brothers and Sisters’.
Andy and Jo kick off this brand-new series of Marriage Matters, looking at how we keep going and they go there – they talk openly about the D word – Divorce!
No way, I hear you cry – and the unmentionable on the first episode as well!
How can Andy and Jo talk about a lasting marriage, and Divorce, in the same episode, in the same sentence – this all sounds like Marriage Madness, not Marriage Matters. Or is it?
Our very first Episode of Marriage Matters goes Live this Saturday, from 4pm (UK time).
We thought we’d start with something low key, so we ‘re starting start our brand New Podcast by discussing Staying Married, and Getting Divorced. Nice and easy topics to warm us up!
You’ll find each Episode right here – on the BerryBunch.family website. And you can chose to Listen to the Podcast, Watch the video, or Read the Transcript.
Our very first Episode of Marriage Matters goes Live this Saturday, from 4pm (UK time). We thought we’d start with something low key, so we ‘re starting start
Is reverence something we need, as Christians, in the current world?
Is reverence a bygone requirement for believers, surpassed by the death and resurrection of Jesus?
Is reverence something we should be bothered about in our churches and families?
Andy B takes a look at something that he has been thinking through, and about, for more than 2 and a half years; pondering and chewing what he saw as a lack of reverence in so many churches, it seems normal.
Go Deeper with Andy B, as he explains how we make sure we’re going in the right direction.
He touches on the armour of God, in particular the shoes of the gospel of peace.
In reference to Habakkuk 3:19, he looks at deer, climbers, and athletes being sure-footed and confident due to knowledge, practice, and experience.
Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced!
Explore with us as we talk about what we should do when we hit a ‘fork in the road’.
After seeing some beautiful images of Autumn, or Fall – depending on what part of the world you live in – Andy B got thinking about cycles of life.
Because in life, just like those leaves, what can seem the end, can also just be the beginning of something else, and new.
Go Deeper with Andy B, as he explains the concept of going against the grain.
He expands some verses of Scripture, Romans 12:2, James 3:4, and Acts 3:19.
He explains that going against the grain isn’t something we ought to try and do, but it is often unavoidable when we’re walking in the direction God calls us to go.
Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced! Explore with us as we talk about the idea of
We’ve been talking about our brand new project – Marriage Matters -for some time now. Jo and Andy have finally got the first recording good to go! You’ll
There are always things which will blur how people will see us.
Much like my trusty boots, our identity can become confused by the scuffs and dents we all experience in life.
On my boots, they will always be the same brand. But, the name on the side, even though it is bright orange, is showing signs of age – after being used almost every day, all day, for a year.
We have a dehumidifier in our home. Because, in our last home, we had horrendous damp, which led to serious problems with mould.
And we were thankful that we were able to get some great advice about which sort of dehumidifier to buy. And so we bought the type we were advised to buy.
And ours really is superb. You set the humidity level you want in your home, which you can find in the manual, and you switch it on. That’s it – other than emptying the tank when it is full of water.
Go Deeper with Andy B, as he digs deeper into the subject of training with others.
He talks about the impact that encouragement has on athletes in sports events.
He relates an occasion when he was cycling, and Steven came alongside him while running, and the influence their individual efforts had on one another.
Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced!
Explore with us as we talk about ‘Training with Others’.
When we go cycling, things can stick to our tyres. If you go mountain biking, you might end up with plenty of mud liberally applied to your bike. And if you’re really unfortunate, you’ll end up with a clay/grass mix that will stick to the outside of your tyre, and weight your bike down enough that you struggle up hills you can normally cycle up, without much effort or thought.
Well this is exactly what happened to Jo, and her bike, when we were out Mountain Biking one day.
It seemed as though the weight of her bike had been doubled! And holding a pile of it in my hands, after I’d scraped it off her bike, I could easily believe it.
When a well runs out of water, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no water left – just that the water table may have dropped, so our well runs out of water. When we dig down a bit further, we find that water again, and our fill will be filled with water once more.
And in our relationship, and walk, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we can often feel as though God has moved away from us.
We have several items in our recording studio that are nearly identical. They may be the same length, or the same brand, they may just look really similar. And this can make setting up the studio entertaining, when you’re trying to connect one specific microphone, or whatever.
Andy B loves simple solutions to life’s troubles, so when he had given up trying to be patient plugging into cables, that he can never tell apart, he came up with a solution – velcro.
Go Deeper with Andy B, as he talks about spiritual walls in our lives.
Having read our two Scriptures for this week, Andy begins by speaking about those walls that we can face when exercising.
He relates a personal experience of hitting a wall while cycling one time.
And he looks at the idea of overcoming that wall in terms of not giving up because of feelings – feelings that the wall is impassable or impenetrable.
He also talks about another type of wall, which is more of a warning, such as when we feel pain.
Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced!
Explore with us as we look at the idea of ‘Breaking the Wall’.
Andy B took Jo for her return trip to the dentist, but while Andy and Jo share many traits and interests, one thing Jo does REALLY well, is not worrying about things she either has no control over, or things that haven’t yet come to pass.
With a hyper-sensitivity to needles, Andy would have been worrying for two weeks straight, letting the anxiety grow, thinking through the various things that could go wrong. Positive side of that trait, is the ability to read ahead, see the problems before they happen and prevent them – which makes event planning really easy.