Video Teaching: Why Aren’t You Married? Part 1
Barry and Lori explore the topic of why some singles may not be married, even though they desire to be and give some tips for singles. Part 1 of 2.
Video Transcript
LORI: Good morning, you guys.
BARRY: Good morning.
LORI: This morning we want to talk about something that was really just burning in my heart this morning, and it is something that is always burning in our hearts. But we want you singles to be married. Partly because it’s burning in God’s heart, you know? And I think I’ve said this on some of the sets before, but when we were in Germany, there was a prophet that came to us. And after each session of our workshop – we were doing a Spirit Connection Training there – he would come up and tell us things that the angels were saying, and things that the Lord was saying to him about this ministry. And we had marrieds and singles in this workshop, and he came up, and one of the times –
BARRY: It was a Spirit Connection Workshop.
LORI: Spirit Connection Workshop.
BARRY: Not a Single or LAM Workshop.
LORI: Right, right. And he said, “The Lord says the most important thing about the singles is that He wants them to be married.” Now, I don’t know what that means to you, but I have been learning since – I’m sixty-three now; I am learning how to trust God’s voice, and I really felt the Lord all over that. And we can look at all the reasons why we shouldn’t be hoping for that, but we’re going to talk today about some ways that we can encourage you to position yourself for marriage. And we’ve talked about this before, but we keep adding things. And I don’t think we can talk about it too much because it’s an ever-present thing. You’re still not married. There’s still somebody that you’re not interested in. Maybe you’re still not dating; maybe there’s nothing happening on the horizon, but you know in your heart of your hearts that you want to be married, and that is a God-given desire.
BARRY: And we know a lot of singles personally, and we hear from a lot of singles in our workshops that they want to be married, and they’re getting older and older. And you know, the average age of marriage is much higher now than it was when we were young. And that was a long time ago, but it has changed.
LORI: Yeah. So, we may even turn this into an eCourse because we’re thinking – I think we have way more material than we can do right now.
BARRY: Yeah. And today we’re going to focus on the women. Lori’s going to kind of focus on the women, and next week we’ll talk more about men.
LORI: Women first; men next week.
BARRY: Yeah.
LORI: So, the first thing I was thinking of is that we absolutely need to be connected to the Father. We need to be in relationship with Him. We need to be close to Jesus. We need to be talking with Holy Spirit. We need to be very much in His Presence and setting times, being intentional to be in His Presence. And I know that so many times life gets busy, and my quiet time goes out the window if I’m having to get up early and be at a meeting. And I think, “Oh, I’ll recap it later – I’ll get some more time to be with You,” and I can’t do it. And so, one of the things I’ve been doing is I’ve really been just listening – setting up times where I can really just listen and be in God’s Presence with worship. And I do it on the way to work, and I’m sitting there bawling in the car because the Lord is encountering me. Or even in the mornings, I’ve started just making up my own exercise routine, and I had Barry B. come down and do it yesterday morning since it’s so smoky around our house; we can’t go outside. But just being able to put on songs that God is really speaking to us about, and just letting His Presence come into the room – it’s just so valuable. There’s so much more that we could say on that.
BARRY: Let me just add something here.
LORI: Yeah.
BARRY: I need add something here, because it’s really important from what I saw in Lori. You can do your quiet time every day; you can memorize the Bible and be a walking Bible and not attract any man. And we’re talking to the women again today. Or become like a know-it-all answer person, and that’s not we’re talking about. But what is necessary is that you have relationship with God, and God comes first. And two things – that, and secondly is that you live out how you – when you are with God, it helps you learn how to live. One of the things that really attracted to me about Lori and actually brought confidence and trust and helped me realize why I couldn’t make a commitment to other women that I had dated is because Lori really had a good foundation with the Lord and how she lived. And what I realized – I had actually dated someone that I thought I would marry, but I could never figure out why, and I could never trust her. But what I saw in Lori is that because her foundation was with the Lord, she was the same when she was with me as with other people, because it was the Lord leading her, not me, or not the person that she was with. And so that just brought a trust and foundation. But that made her connection with God very real. It wasn’t just an idea; it wasn’t just a philosophy. It was who she who she became.
LORI: And women, you want a good man. You want a man who’s going to love Jesus more than he loves you, because if he does, he’s really going to love you with God’s love. And you will not be attracting that person that you want if you’re not living that out yourself. And you won’t even be looking for the right person if you’re not living in God’s Presence. And the other thing is just getting into His Word; we have to be in the Word of God. I mean in this day and age, there’s so much that’s standing against God’s Word, that’s trying to nullify it in our lives, and it is the core of everything we do. And so, just those things.
I wrote down, “Holy Spirit education.” Holy Spirit sometimes will talk to me about things, and He’ll just start getting me going on a subject. And then He’ll bring books to me or people or situations, and so I also spend time following up on things that Holy Spirit has highlighted, words that God has given me. I really try to foster living my life according to not just the logos word but the rhema word of God. And so, just those three things – spending time in His Presence, spending time in the Word and obeying Holy Spirit as He leads you and trains you in things. The next – did you have anything else you wanted say on that?
BARRY: No…
LORI: The next thing I thought about is it’s so important for us as – for you as singles; I’m not a single anymore – to be consistent in the body of Christ. There’s a verse that says, “Don’t forsake your assembling together.” And that’s not because God is a big ogre, and he has all these rules and is just trying to make it hard on you. But He wants you to be – He doesn’t want you to be away from the pack so that you can be picked off. We’re supposed to be a family; we’re supposed to be connected. And if you don’t have that, ask Holy Spirit to lead you to a place where you can connect. Ask Him to highlight people that you can connect to in your body and join a homegroup. And sometimes, you know, we’re so busy that, “Oh, I don’t want to go to homegroup.” Make intentional choices to be with the people of God so that they have input into your life and you have input into theirs.
BARRY: Yeah. I’ll make one more comment about that community and especially singles’ community. Some people say, “You know all these singles groups are all just made up of people that are strange and unusual.” And it may be true that they may attract people that are not really good at relationship, because maybe the ones that are better relationship are already married. But part of the reason why they’re like that is because you’re not there. If you would go, and you would – if you’re stronger relationally and stuff, then you need to be there. And not just say, “Oh, I only want to be with the cool people. I want to be with this and that.” It’s an issue I’ve heard over the years, many people that, oh, kind of want to have one foot in the world and one foot in the church, and not really make a commitment, instead of really being in community and giving and serving with the people that really are with you in the body of Christ.
LORI: And a homegroup doesn’t even have to just be made up of singles. It’s actually really healthy to be in a multi-group, a multi-homegroup. And I think it’s really important, too, to be intentional about keeping married friends as a single and being able to get good input from them – people that really know you and love you and can speak into your life, and you can be speaking into their lives as well.
It’s a good thing to be in a place where you can serve and give somewhere in your life. Because when you’re just all alone and by yourself, it becomes really – you can become self-absorbed. And so, to be able to say, “God would you point me in the right direction?” Maybe you’re supposed to help, you know, in benevolence, or maybe you’re supposed to help babysit in the nursery. Or maybe you’re supposed to bring a meal over to somebody; I don’t know. But just let the Lord know, “I want to be serving You, God. I want to be serving Your people.” Maybe you’re already doing that, and that’s great.
The last thing I thought of, too, is get a bunch of people together that you know and do the SLW eCourse. You haven’t learned everything that’s in SLW even if you go to the workshop. You should probably go to it again because we’re at different places in our lives where, “Okay, we’ve learned this, but the next time we go, now the Holy Spirit is highlighting something completely different.” And honestly, I think Single Life Workshop is one of the best ways to really position you and prepare you for marriage, because it continues to get rid of the junk in your life and helps you stay connected to the Holy Spirit.
BARRY: Okay. Are you moving on to the physical?
LORI: Yes, but I had just this little thing right here, too. Are you trying to hurry me on so we can get to everything?
BARRY: I wanted to introduce the physical.
LORI: Okay, okay. Well, let me say one more thing. There’s just a few of these things that I’ve talked to men and women, but especially women about. I wrote this down after I got out of the shower; see all my sticky notes? These are my notes. But I feel like it’s so important not to isolate. You know, as singles – I remember being a single and being so lonely. And you know, I have not been lonely since I married him. He’s been my kindred friend, you know? And I think sometimes there’s a healthy lonely that keeps moving us out and making us risk and step into things that we wouldn’t normally do. But it’s really easy to think, “Oh, I’m just going to stay home and watch Netflix,” or, “You know, I really don’t want to go out.” And I just think it’s really important to be aware and ask Holy Spirit, “Show me if I’m isolating.” And then take steps. I’m going to have you do something at the end of this that’s going to help you. But take steps to not isolate. Choose relationship. Make the effort to be with people, whether they’re single, whether they’re married, regardless – whether there’s kids involved.
I also put down, I feel like God really wants us to be healthy and strong and in good shape. We don’t have to have perfect bodies. We can have the body we’re supposed to have, but He does want us to be healthy. And I’m going say this because I really believe it. But one of the reasons why I really want to stay in shape and be strong, and I’m doing weights, and I’m doing all these other things – but I’ve done that all my life. I value a body that is healthy because I want it to serve me well. But now I have grandchildren, so I want to be able to carry my grandchildren. But one of the things – and Barry goes, “Are you going to share this?” And I go, “Yes, I am.” So here it is. I really know that the exercises I’m doing are aiding me in having good sex and just fun positions that we’ve figured out. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. But –
BARRY: It changes as you get older.
LORI: It does, and it’s important that you’re aware of being responsible before God to be as healthy as you can be.
BARRY: Another reason to get married is you can come to LAM to hear more about these things.
LORI: Yes, it’s true, and it gets even worse than this, believe me.
BARRY: You know, one thing real quick I want to say – I have not lived through our marriage to keep Lori from being lonely. I don’t even think about that.
LORI: We’re not lonely.
BARRY: And she said that, you know, she hasn’t been lonely since we were married, but that’s not my job to keep her from being lonely, or her to keep me from being lonely.
LORI: That’s just an extra perk you get from being married to the right person.
BARRY: Yeah, it’s just part of having a good relationship, a close relationship with each other, and as you’re sharing openly and, you know, really doing life together.
LORI: Yeah, that’s good. I have a whole bunch of things that – I think I’m just going to say this, and then we’ll get to the physical part because that’s kind of important. Don’t get mad at God. Don’t. Don’t get offended at people and offended at God. I have seen so many singles come to this place where they’re trying not to, and some of them are not even aware that they are, but they’re getting bitter towards God that they’re not married. And then it separates you from the source of life and beauty and hope, all the things you want to have in your life to attract the right man. So, you need to repent right now of that. And you don’t forgive God; you nail unforgiveness to the cross, or you repent of blaming Him or accusing Him. And you need to nail a spirit of offense – you know, I think it’s easy for singles because you are on your own, but you can get so offended in a group or with something somebody says. I mean, we can do that as married people, too; it’s not just singles. But I know that that works against you because it just makes you want to pull back. And you don’t have somebody you have to keep working things out with. You can just go home and sit; you can just be in your little whatever you want to be in. But those two things, being mad at God and being offended, are probably two of the biggest deterrents to you positioning yourself for marriage. So, you need to repent of that.
BARRY: Okay. So, Lori?
LORI: Yes.
BARRY: What do you think about girls wearing makeup?
LORI: Okay. Well.
BARRY: To make themselves look nice.
LORI: I was getting ready today, and I was supposed to be in [the office]. And I knew I was going to be late, so I wasn’t going to be able to put my makeup on. And I always start to put my makeup on because I like how I look with makeup, and I’ve worn makeup all my life. And all of a sudden,
BARRY: And she does a good job with her makeup.
LORI: I just felt like the Lord said, “Don’t put your makeup on.” And I was going, “Yeah, but I have to be on a video this morning,” you know? And I just thought, “Oh, my gosh. This is so great!” Because one of the things I wanted to talk about is, you know, being physically fit, taking good care of yourself, but also this whole thing about making the most of your assets. Okay? Whatever that means to you. But even just – like for example, I’ve always worn makeup ever since I could because I was so excited. I loved – I even tried to put makeup on my dolls. So, I’ve kind of had a bent towards that. I wouldn’t say I’m overtly like, “I’m just so into makeup, and I just, you know, I love – ”I don’t feel like I overdo it. Some of you know me; you may think I overdo it. But I feel like I am the best version of myself when I go out, and I’ve put something – I don’t have color in my face. As you can see, you can hardly tell where my lips end and my cheeks go. And usually I put stuff on my cheeks, and I put a little stuff on my lips. And I enhance my eyes because I think I have nice eyes. And I’ve done that ever since I was young. And I feel like –
BARRY: Lori also has a gift to make things beautiful, and so she does that pretty naturally. Some of you may have that as well, and you can do that. Some of you may need help doing that. But it’s something – some of us have to learn these things; for some of us, it’s real natural.
LORI: Now some people don’t have to wear any makeup. They have natural color, and they have dark – you know, they have color in their face, and they’re just gorgeous. And if I was like that, I probably wouldn’t wear any makeup. You know, our boys have dated people, and they like people that take care of themselves and make the most. They don’t like tons of makeup. But there is a way for you to look in the mirror – I’m convinced of this – and ask Holy Spirit, “What do I need to do? What else?” Like, you know, looking at yourself and thinking, “You know, I have really beautiful eyes. I have nice lips. I have a nice chin. I have…” you know, and seeing, “What do I need to do?” And what I did is I saw I have no color in my cheeks; you know, I don’t have any natural color. And as I get older, I feel like I look more like my dad when I don’t have makeup on. And I love my dad, and he’s great dad. I love you, Dad, if you’re watching this, but I don’t want to look like you. You know? And one time we were laughing so hard because Barry – he asks me; he says –
BARRY: I don’t remember; I don’t know what you’re going to say.
LORI: It’s so funny. It was really cute, actually. He goes, “Um, are you going to put any makeup on today?” You know, and I go, “Do I not have any on?” He goes, “No.” And I go, “Oh, I forgot to.” But he’s used to seeing me in the way I like to be seen. And he says, “Because you know what?” He says, “As you’re getting older, you kind of look like your dad.”
BARRY: I guess I said that.
LORI: He did. But you know what? It didn’t offend me because I know this man loves me. And it’s not about putting on makeup so that somebody will love you. Let me tell you this story. When we were dating still – I don’t even think – I don’t know – we might have been engaged, but I don’t know. I was so busy; I was doing all these things. And I ended up getting strep throat, and I was sick as a dog. And he brought me over some soup. Well, you have to understand. I was wearing my gross bathrobe that I like to wear that’s so ugly, and my face was all broken out; I had zits all over. So not only did I have a white face, but I had zits all over. And I had –
BARRY: She probably had a few, not all over.
LORI: And – it was a lot. And on top of that, I had had a friend give me a permanent. And you had already dis- oh, that was – we were engaged, weren’t we? Because it was afterwards.
BARRY: Yeah, it was close to it, close to it.
LORI: He came over after I got the permanent; he touched my hair, and he goes, “Oh!” He goes, “What did you to your hair?”
BARRY: “What happened to your hair?” It felt like a Brillo pad; it was so burnt from the dye or whatever. She overdid it.
LORI: And my hair – it was – I’m remembering this; it was so funny. I was practically crying then.
BARRY: It didn’t feel like her hair anymore.
LORI: But my hair was like –
BARRY: Our staff is laughing.
LORI: Our whole team is laughing. So back to the day where he’s bringing soup. So, he already knows about my hair, but my hair is like standing on end. And he comes over, and he just kisses me. He just kisses me, and it was so precious. And I’m kind of going like, “Oh, don’t look at me. Don’t touch me.” He goes, “What are you talking about?” And he just held me, you know? So, he didn’t care that I looked as bad as I looked. And so, I’m not saying this, that you have to wear makeup to catch a man. I already caught my man. And although I don’t know if he would have chosen me if I looked like that, you know? I mean, I don’t know. We both can’t say because he was attracted to me as he saw me, and I was attracted to him. And you know, initially, attraction is the biggest thing, but then you find out what’s inside. And you know, still in the mornings – you know, I’m old and wrinkly now, and he’ll say, “Lori, you’re my beauty,” you know, before we’re even out of bed. So, this is not about performing; it’s not about trying to become something you’re not. It’s making the most of what God has given you, and it’s having value for yourself. You know, if you have value for yourself, you’re going to attract someone that has value for themselves. And you want that. And I look at it like it’s a way for me to give to people when I wear makeup; I just look a little nicer.
I’ll tell this last story, and then we can move on to the next thing. But this is after we were married, and we had four boys. And I ran in, and I didn’t have time to put my makeup on. But I’d just gotten back; I was grocery shopping with all four of them, and I run in really quick to his office. And his secretary is there. And I go – and I name her; I call her by name, and I go, “Oh, I just need this.” And she goes, “I’m sorry, what is your name?” And I go – her name was Maureen. I go, “Maureen, it’s Lori, Barry’s wife!” And she goes, “Oh!” You know, like she totally didn’t know who I was. And so, I know for me, it makes a big difference if I have makeup and if I don’t because of the color thing. Now those of you that have color, I’m not, you know – and you feel fine, and your man loves the way you are, and you feel like – but I would say this.
Go in front of the mirror. Ask Holy Spirit – invite Him to be with you and just say, “Is there anything else that You want me to explore, to add to me and position myself for marriage?” And let Him speak to you. And then I would do this. Go to somebody that you know that wears makeup –and this is all if you don’t wear makeup – and somebody that you like the way they do their makeup. It looks nice, and somebody that you know does a good job of that, and somebody that you could trust that would be able to give you input. And just talk to them about that and say, “Would you – what do you think? Would you just – ” and do a dialog with somebody, and just open the door for the possibility. And then it would take some – now see, I loved doing this; I was putting it on my dolls. But you may not want to do it; it may not be as fun for you as it was for me and for other people that like to put makeup on. But if Holy Spirit showed you that, and if that made a difference of somebody noticing you that you wanted them to notice you, but they weren’t? Sometimes people say, “I don’t know why I’m not getting asked out, and I don’t know why this guy I like…” you know? And you’re such an awesome person; then they love you as a friend. But there just may be the right chemistry, the right – I don’t know. I think our boys are like that where they have wanted a girl who is willing to value herself and make the most of her assets. It doesn’t mean that they have to wear makeup all the time, but it’s knowing that they can make themselves beautiful for you. And I think that’s kind of it.
BARRY: You’re done? Okay. Let me just share a few things. We’re going a little bit long. We don’t want these to be too long for you. The other thing I was thinking about Lori is I knew she wanted to be married, and she wanted to be a mother. It wasn’t ambiguous, “Oh, let’s just get married and – ” and so we had a direction. And then that’s what I wanted. I wanted to be married, and I wanted to have a family. And I’ll talk about this some more next week, but those values are not very clear to a lot of young people these days of what they really want to be, what’s the value of being a mother, a father, family versus job versus making money versus having possessions and all that kind of thing. Things have changed.
Another thing Lori did – probably many of you that have heard us talk, you’ll hear Lori call me Barry B. Some people think she’s calling me “Baby,” different things, but she says Barry B. for my last name – first initial in my last name, Byrne. And she began that while we were dating, and it was like a really endearing thing that she’s continued through almost forty years of marriage now, and –
LORI: Barry B.
BARRY: Yeah. She even – one time while we were dating, we were playing – on a Saturday, we were playing softball, and she was on the opposite team. And I was up to bat, and she was out in the outfield cheering me on, calling me Barry B., even though she was on the opposite team.
LORI: He likes that.
BARRY: But that was a – I just felt support from her, that that’s one of the things she could do is just encourage me and let me know that she liked me, that I was important, that I was special to her. And so, that was a really important thing to me. And I already talked about the trust thing which is really, really important.
Another thing I would say about Lori and her personality, which I really liked and I’ve seen through all the years, is there’s a combination of strength but also of being really caring and also being very tender. And the strength isn’t controlling, isn’t manipulative, although she can be very strong; any of you that know she can be very opinionated and not back down.
LORI: And I can be manipulative, too.
BARRY: Yeah, but that isn’t predominant. More likely she’s going to – she will try to influence and persuade people; that’s pretty natural for her. But she’s not going to be pushed around easily or change who she is easily or be easily influenced by a bad influence. So she has a strength, an inner strength, of her own values and morality and where she’s going. And Lori’s a giver, but she’s not an enabler or a rescuer trying to take care of everybody. She’s a giver, and she also knows what she needs and is able to take care of things that – her own needs as well and make sure that she’s not taken advantage of. And then she’s also – there’s this tender, gentle part, which it really is a vulnerable part of her, that she’s very expressive of her emotions and her feelings about how she feels about other people and expresses those easily and about herself. And that combination of strength and gentleness, tenderness, caring has been really, really important to me. It’s something that I love in her as a woman.
LORI: Thank you, Barry B.
BARRY: You’re welcome. And the other thing I wanted to say is, we’re not saying these things to you to say, “Oh, this is how I catch a man, and then once I catch him, once we’re married, I don’t have to wear makeup anymore. I don’t have to think about this anymore.” This should be a way you live. And things will change after you’re married; it’s different when you’re dating and when you’re married. You can’t do all the same things. But it’s those same values of wanting marriage, wanting to be the best you that you can be physically, spiritually, emotionally. And…what else was I thinking here? Oh, just thinking of your spouse and making them special and stuff. Those things should continue. And they can change throughout your life, but they should continue throughout your life to keep the attraction and keep the connection.
LORI: I wanted to just give you a little bit of homework. I already told you I want you to go into the bathroom and ask Holy Spirit to show you what you could do, and then to find a friend – somebody that already has makeup – so I want you to do that. But I want you to do this. I want you to ask Holy Spirit, “What are ten things – ” and some of you may have already done this, but you’re at a different stage right now than when you last did this. You’re always changing. But, “What are ten things I need to do right now in my life to position myself for marriage?” And I want you to take a good amount of time. Put on some soaking music and give yourself an hour. Sit down and just start writing, and let the Lord speak through your pen. And write down the things for you specifically, what He wants you to be doing. And even you can review this Facebook Live, and you can look at this again and kind of go through some of the things we’ve talked about. But I think it is so important for singles to welcome Holy Spirit into the process of being single and even the groaning. And there’s some – I realize there’s a whole bunch more that I want to tell you, so we’re probably going to make this not just a two section; it’ll probably be a three section. Okay?
BARRY: Three part.
LORI: So.
BARRY: So, Lord, we just want to pray that what we’ve said today will be helpful to many couples, encourage them, help them to move forward without fear and with strength and really being who they are into relationship. Lord, I ask that You would bring people together; You would open their eyes to see each other, to notice each other, people that You have matched them with. And I just pray for open hearts, open spirits, so people can actually feel that from each other, too.
LORI: And Lord, I ask that nobody would be offended by this, the things that we’re asking people to do. I ask that there would be a real freedom to look at this objectively in a way they have not looked at it before and to be able to give You sway in their life as they stand before the mirror. And I just – I know how much you care about this, God. I know how much You are wanting couples to come together. You’ve put this desire in their hearts. So, we just bless you. We bless your spirit to position yourself as you’re writing your list to be able to allow Holy Spirit to really position you for the person that God has for you. And we pray this in the name of Jesus.
BARRY: Amen.