(upbeat music) - Happy Friday everyone. We're back with Francis Chan, who joins us again from San Francisco. Francis and his wife Lisa are the authors of the new book, "You and Me Forever, Marriage in Light of Eternity." Francis, how do you and Lisa argue like Christians? I think some readers of the book will be surprised that you and Lisa have conflict, but of course married couples won't be surprised at all.

We all do at some point. So when it comes to verbal conflicts and disagreements, what is a core lesson that you have learned about how to argue with your spouse in a way that honors Christ? - Yes, Lisa and I argue. Honestly, we don't argue that much because we realize we don't have time for this.

We're on a mission. She describes it like there's a TV show called "The Amazing Race" where couples are racing to get to this finish line and they're competing with other couples. But you see certain ones fight and they start losing ground and they argue with each other and they lose the race.

And we look at our lives very much like that. Like there are things for us to do. And if we, we're here to seek his kingdom, we're here to make disciples. And if we spend our time just fighting with each other, it's gonna keep us from his mission. And so one of the ways we fight is always realizing, okay, divorce isn't an option.

And also we don't have a lot of time to argue about petty things because we're dealing with eternal things. And so we keep that in our minds. Another thing that we keep in mind, for me, 1 Peter 3 comes to mind where it tells us husbands to live with our wives in this understanding way, to treat her as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that our prayers may not be hindered.

Okay, if I don't do this right, God's not gonna listen to my prayers and I gotta have him hear my prayers. That's the most important thing in my life. And so I need to treat her as a daughter of God. I need to honor her as we speak. And again, I mean, the biggest word I could say is humility.

I mean, that's what causes all this, right? A lack of humility. The goal is becoming like Jesus. The goal is not winning an argument. It is pleasing Christ, becoming like Christ. Most of the time, the person who quote unquote wins the argument is usually the one who acts least like Jesus.

And so we keep that in mind that, okay, God opposes the proud. And so I could win this argument in a sense, but if I do it in arrogance, now suddenly I've got God opposing me. So what did I win? You know, I'm a loser at that point. So it's like, okay, humble myself, treat her like God's daughter, and remember that, okay, we've got things to do for the kingdom.

We cannot waste our time arguing about things that are not eternal. So let me humble myself. If it's not a big deal, then just let it go. Let her have her way. There's more important things to focus on. - Thank you, Francis. We're gonna pick up our conversation next week because I have two more questions I'd love to get your thoughts on.

Specifically, how do you manage the time that your kids have with digital devices? But next time I wanna hear from you about the growing trend of couples who are marrying later and later in life. What do you think is the cause and what are the consequences of this trend?

We'll tackle that one on Monday. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)