Hello and welcome to another episode of Upfront and Undivided with Luke and Dean'na.
Hello!
Hi baby.
I always laugh at myself because I say hello like I haven't seen you and been talking
to you for like the last couple hours.
Yeah, I mean well today, kind of, it's been that way.
Gabriel and I got to do fillings for our mouth.
Yeah, y'all got to go to the dentist.
We went to the dentist.
Yay!
And I'm just, I'm very, very excited that I'm not completely numb because I would have
been like, sure.
Or in pain.
Yeah, we've got a really good dentist.
I'm grateful for our dentist.
But yeah, it was like I'm not in crazy pain and Gabriel got four.
I only had one.
Yep.
So I did, I...
You're not slurring and drooling.
I'm not, be like, hey, how you doing guys?
You know, or, hey, hey, hey, this is good, you get...
I don't know.
I don't know how I would have sounded.
I don't know why I sound like a little, little man.
That was funny.
It's fine.
You get it.
Do you laugh though?
I do.
You've been with me.
Like when I got my wisdom teeth out, we got video.
Maybe we'll have to find that video.
Like that, right there.
Adrian!
Yo.
Adrian!
I do, I get tickled.
It's good though.
It is good.
It's good though.
Because you know some people like they cry or they get a little, I don't know, angry.
Or some people shut down.
Yeah.
Or yeah, some people, yeah.
It's weird.
It's...
They usually say if you want to find out a person's like actual personality, maybe either
they have drink or they, you know, have a little something inside their system.
And that's usually the person that you like see, see.
Like the deep, deep down person you see.
I don't know.
I think it's a give or take.
I think it just, it is what it is.
So I just happen to giggle.
You do.
But I do like to laugh.
Yeah, you do.
It's, but that's not a secret to anybody.
I don't think.
Just like my secret is, you know, back when I was in college and I would live that life,
I would become really quiet and go off and wander off by myself.
Yeah, what a shocker.
That's, I mean, not for me, because that is you.
Yeah.
And you're, and I'm grateful that you're comfortable enough to where maybe that's what it is.
It's when you feel comfortable or when there's a safe kind of situation.
Oh yeah.
I don't know.
It's all good.
All right.
What are we talking about?
So this week I'm going to call it the best return policy.
The best return policy.
Yes.
Kind of like we're shopping?
Not like, so not like we're shopping, like a return, like I want to get rid of this.
I want to give it back.
Yeah.
But a return, like an investment, like the return on it of investment or on investment.
I love that.
So the best return policy.
Okay.
So, I mean, I know, I know we were talking about this the other day and a little bit
of it is going to go back to our talk from last week when we were talking about intimacy
and relationships and all.
Not really like a whole lot of this is going to go back, but some of this is going to relate
back.
Okay.
Because I know one thing that we've mentioned and I know I wanted to talk about it again
was you get what you put in.
Right.
You get back what you put in.
Right.
Like, again, kind of like a really good savings account or an investment account.
Yeah.
You know, you put in a certain amount of money and with interest and returns and stuff, your
return is just, it's a lot better than what you first put in.
Right.
You know, the effort, the time that you put into a relationship that we've put into this
relationship, the return is much greater than what it had, than what we initially put in.
Absolutely.
So, you know, 14 months of just focusing and building on the foundation of what would be
has now been over 10 years of marriage.
Right.
Or no.
Almost 10.
Almost 10 years.
Yeah.
Almost 10 years.
We've been together over 10 years.
Yeah.
But yeah.
But yeah, actually.
But yeah.
So it's one of those things that it's like.
What kind of foundation are you building?
Yeah.
What kind of foundation?
I mean, no matter what your goal is, whether your goal is a relationship, marriage, or
you know, a business venture or physical health, mental health, what you put into it will directly
go towards what you get out of it.
I love that.
You know, because I do, I know that we are big into fitness.
Right.
We are big into focusing and being mindful of our physical health.
Right.
And I know we've said it before that, you know, like if somebody's trying to get rid
of some extra weight, this weight didn't come on in 30 days.
Correct.
Or didn't come on overnight.
Correct.
So it's going to take time and effort.
Right.
To get that weight off, to get to a level of strength.
Right.
That you want.
Right.
And I say that, you know, that kind of goes into this, you know, the best return because
when you're going on that journey of losing weight, getting stronger, working on your
endurance and stamina, you're picking up and creating new habits and new discipline that's
actually going to take you farther in life than what you initially thought.
Absolutely.
I know that like right now, I'm doing this metabolic renewal.
Right.
Yes.
And basically it's a breakdown of the guy said it was four M's and I really should have
brought it downstairs and so we could say it, but we'll go ahead and put it on the,
on this.
We'll link it on there.
But basically one of the number one things he says is your mindset.
Yeah.
If, if you change your mind, you'll change your habits.
If you change your habits, you'll start changing your life.
Right.
And you'll start creating these things that you're needing with the metabolic renewal
as far as my body, you know, because sometimes you, you age.
I mean you always age.
I don't know why I said sometimes we always age.
All of us are aging at a constant rate.
Yes.
But how we mature into that, how do you know, cause we're trying to not so much age gracefully,
we're trying to age successfully.
I like that.
You know what I mean?
I'm out of my mouth and it's like, because I'm 46, right?
I'm looking at 47.
I'm going to be 47.
Okay.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Woo.
Hold on.
Give me a second.
But so it's one of those where even in our mindsets, we have to say my body doesn't
quite respond the way that it used to, or I'm now in a new season and it's not even just,
like I'm in a new season, but now I have, I might have a different stress load than
I did before.
I might have different responsibilities that I had before.
I might not have certain things in my life anymore that I had before.
And it's like that constant readjustment, readjustment.
The scripture that came to my mind today when we were talking about this is like it's in
Ephesians four.
And it talks about that regarding your previous way of life, you put off your old self completely
just discard.
Sorry guys.
Apparently my mouth is still not working quite right.
Completely discard your former nature, which is being corrupted through a deceitful desires
and be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind, having a fresh, untarnished mental
and spiritual attitude and put on the new self, the regenerated and renewed nature created
in God's image, become God-like and the righteousness and holiness of the truth, living in a way
that that expresses to God your gratitude for your salvation.
So it's like when we renew our minds, when we, instead of saying, well, like I talked
to my mom today, right?
I'm on the phone.
Mom's 75.
She's going to be 76 this year.
And I said, mom, the one prayer that I pray for you and dad constantly is that your latter
years are greater than your former years.
And we're not just talking like you become like a 20 something body and all of this again,
but that your strength becomes renewed.
Your joy becomes restored because the joy of the Lord is our strength.
That's what carries us through.
And it's that renewing our mind saying, I am able, I'm not used goods.
I'm not too old.
I'm not too young.
You know, knowing that wherever I am in this process of life, this season of life, that
as long as my mind is renewed, as long as I'm, I'm continually being refreshed in, in
what God has called me to be, then the rest of it's going to start following.
It's a lot easier to, you always say it, it's a lot easier to move a ship when it's actually
moving and turning it.
So it's like, if we, if we just take the time and the effort, start putting one foot in
front of the other, whether it's, if it's a relationship, you know, it's a relationship
that's 10, 20, 30 years in the making and they're in a rut.
You hear that all the time.
People say, you know, we're empty nesters.
We've been focusing on our children and now we're looking at each other going, I don't
even know who you are.
And it's like, you don't have to scrap it.
You just start from where you are and then you renew your minds of, I fell in love with
you for a reason.
I I'm in this life with you for a reason.
Rediscover, you know, retrain, you know, it's people say, well, I fell out of love and I'm
like, it shouldn't be a falling out or falling into, we have a big, uh, that big frame on
our wall.
We, we me mostly, but we are again, our big word people and we like you ever come into
our house, you're basically going to read walls.
And one of the big things that it says, and when we're sitting in our living room, we
can look up and we can see it and it says, I choose you and I'll choose you over and
over and over again.
You know, it's a choice.
So these habits, these lifestyles, these mindsets, even what our walk with Christ, it's a choice.
You're not always going to feel like you want to do this.
You're not always going to feel like you love this person.
You're not always going to feel like you want to go work out.
Right.
Cause Lord knows, right?
That's right.
And it's, it's that if I have my mindset, if I have, if I have this goal and our goal
is we want to be healthy.
We want to be good stewards with what God has done in our lives.
We want to be good stewards with the bodies he's given us.
We're going to be accountable for him.
I kind of believe that, you know, and we also, we want to have the energy and the stamina
because our children and one day our children's children's children and we want to be able
to live life healthy for them and keep up.
Right.
I'm going to, I want my grandbabies to have to keep up with me, you know?
So it's that renewing I think is one of the number one keys that a lot of people have
to, to remember.
It's just that starting with our mindset of who we are, what do you want to do?
What is your goal?
What ultimately is it that you want?
And then, and then you get to start building onto that.
Yeah.
And, and kind of like what we had talked about last week with the whole, you know, the thought
of continuing to date your spouse and all that.
It's, it's not just dating your spouse, but you know, do your best to learn from your
spouse, you know, because again, you know, the, the people that, you know, they, they
fall in love and then after, you know, once they have kids, you know, let's say they,
they have five years where they don't, before they have kids and then all of a sudden, you
know, 20 years of kids in the house, you know, 25 even, you know, so you're now looking at
25, 30 years between when people were married with no kids and now they're married with
no kids again.
Right.
And it's like, you need to take that time to, to learn from your spouse.
Absolutely.
And invest in your spouse because so that way you're not that empty nest or saying,
okay, I'm now in a house alone with this woman and I don't know what she's into.
I don't know what she's like, you know,
Take that time.
Yeah.
You know, that time to grow with each other.
Yeah.
You know, so I think that's something, you know, and again, kind of like I said, you
know, invest your time and your effort and your mind into your spouse.
Absolutely.
Because again, you know, it is what you put into the relationship you're going to get
out of.
Absolutely.
And I'm not saying any of this to say, do this so that you can get that.
Yeah.
That's called manipulation.
Yeah.
Well, and not even manipulation.
It's, you know, it's, it's selfish.
I agree.
You know, you do it because you want to.
You do because you should want to be doing this, you know, like investing in your spouse.
You should be wanting to do that for your marriage, for your spouse.
You know, it's just like if you're investing and, and, and reteaching your, your, your
lifestyle about, you know, healthy eating and, and going to the gym or whatever physical
exercise, you should be doing this because you want to, you want to improve your life.
Yeah.
Not just, well, if I, if I start eating like this and if I hit the gym and I hit this goal,
then I'm going to get, I'm going to get a fiance.
Right.
You know, I'm going to find my soulmate as soon as I hit this mark at the gym and I can
eat this amount of food, you know, and it's, you know, it's, it's kind of back to, I like
to use the example of smoking.
Okay.
Because I used to smoke.
Right.
You know, when you, when you go to quit smoking, if you're not doing it for yourself for a
good reason, it's there, there's a better chance that it's not going to last.
Yeah.
You know, it's, well, I quit smoking from my girlfriend, you know, and then all of a
sudden it's like, you know, within a month or two, you're back to smoking.
Right.
You know, or I'm, I quit smoking because of this job.
Well, you know, I mean, I went off to basic training.
I quit, I quit smoking for basic training.
Okay.
Cause I couldn't get my hands on a cigarette for six and a half weeks.
Wow.
But I mean, as soon as I got out of basic training within a day or two, I'm back to
having a pack of cigarettes in my pocket.
Wow.
You know, because I wasn't doing it for me.
I wasn't doing it to improve my life.
I was just following the rules.
Gotcha.
You know, and, and so I think that that falls into a lot of this, you know, if you're doing
this, if you're doing something to, you know, to even make it look like you're improving
your life, um, to, to tick off a box or I'm doing it for that person.
You know, I don't, I'm not fully sold, but I know this is what they want.
It's yeah, it's, it's almost doomed to fail.
Yeah.
You know, yes, it can succeed, but it's, there's a better chance that it's doomed to fail.
Gotcha.
So I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
And I know that another thing that we were wanting to kind of bring to the table too
is, um, we talked about how when you start subtracting negative habits, when you start
subtracting eliminating things out of your life.
So we're talking about kind of two different things.
And again, thanks for following us along on this trail.
We're kind of zigzagging in and out, but I think, I think the number one thing is like
you said, the investment, what kind of investment are we putting in?
And it's like, sometimes it's not always what you're doing, but what is, what are you not
doing?
Yeah.
You know, making sure that, cause like with you, you did that one program, there was a
program that you did right before we started dating and it was, they said if you change
one percent.
Yeah.
Was it on a daily?
If you pay change, it was like a 40 day challenge.
Yeah.
And one percent of something that you do every day by the end of it, I mean, you're seeing
progress.
You're seeing, and that's good.
Kind of goes back to where you're like, if there's extra weight or if there's extra debt,
if there's, you know, if there's, um, a rift in your relationship that you're like, man,
where did this all come from?
And it's like, well, it's something that's built itself over time.
So you, you have to say, okay, what can I maybe subtract from this too?
What negative thing am I bringing into this?
That's causing me to fail or that's causing me to go into even greater debt.
That's causing me to like almost lose in this relationship.
You know, what are, what am I doing?
Because we've always said, and we learned this a while too, but we've always said you
could be, you could be like 95% wrong in this situation, but I have to own my 5%.
What can I do?
And it's like, somebody says, well, they do blah, blah, blah.
And there is always that finger pointing and you know, and you, you want to say, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa.
You have a say in this too.
You know, you and I are in this relationship and we never say it's 50 50.
It's always a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
And it's like, if, if something is not right here with you and I, if there's something
not right with even you and I'm standing back or even me, it's like, okay, I see that there's
something going on here.
Is this a reflection of possibly something that I've, that I've invested, but I've invested
poorly, you know, maybe it's from a neglect.
Is there something missing there?
Are they acting out our children?
You know, a lot of times our sweet boy or girl too, you know, I just want to spend time
with you, you know, and what kind of investment?
Gabriel and I went and got our nails done yesterday, right?
We're just spending investment.
You and Sebastian went out and it got some burgers the other day, you know, on Saturday,
you are, we're investing, we're investing time into our children.
We're letting them know.
I, you, you have value, you're valuable to me.
You know, you're not just my kid.
I genuinely like you.
And, and I like what I'm, I'm seeing because it's also, I like what I'm sowing into you
and I'm starting to see, you know, that fruit coming out of your life just by speaking goodness,
kindness, reminding you who you are and whose you are.
And then you start seeing those kinds of investments start flourishing.
And then you hear our children speaking to their friends or they're encouraging them
in whatever way they're doing, you know, and then it just starts to multiply.
It goes from generation to generation instead of the, the generational curses of the familiar
things.
Well, this person used to talk really bad about to me.
Now I'm talking really bad to my children and then my children are going to, somebody
along the way has to finally say it stops here.
It stops with me.
I'm going to start investing better quality things and I'm going to take out the bitterness.
I'm going to take out the anger, the hate, the whatever, the unforgiveness, you know,
these things that trip us up and cause problems, you know, and, and I'm going to start setting
a better example, but it's first test or start with me.
Yeah.
So I like that.
Yeah.
I thought you were going to go somewhere else at the beginning of that.
Because you were talking about, you know, sometimes it's not necessarily the investing
of the good qualities or starting the good habits, but sometimes it's about what can
you take away and what can you change?
I know that's always been one of those things that when you take something away, you need
to find, especially if you've taken away something negative, you know, you want to find something
positive to replace it with, otherwise it's going to be that, well, now I don't have it,
so now I crave it.
You know, like, like when you are trying to eat healthy, it's like, if you completely
eliminate sugar, all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, where's my sweets?
I need a cookie.
And then all of a sudden you're like, you're going to do anything.
And you're going to do anything you can just to get a cookie.
And I've heard, you know, Dave Ramsey is actually, you know, he's got a big financial thing and
not completely sold personally.
But one thing I do like is he says when you do a budget, budget in mad money.
You know, you want to have a part of your budget for spoiling yourself.
You know, and it's kind of like that cheat day, you know, like when they talk about in
a diet or meal plan, you know, it's your cheat day.
You know, so that way you have that outlet of I'm not completely eliminating, but I've
got some kind of an outlet, you know, so it's like, I think you need some, you need to remember
that whenever you remove something negative, you know, especially negative, you want to
replace it with something positive.
Right.
So that way, you know, cause I know there's that, that, and I know it doesn't fully apply
here, but there's that scripture that talks about, you know, when the strong man comes
in and knocks out the enemy, that does apply.
Absolutely.
Don't clean house.
Yeah.
Seven more are going to come in that are worse than the one.
No, when you clean house.
Yeah.
So when you clean house, so, and you do not fill it.
Yeah.
You don't fill it back up.
Yeah.
So it's like, you get completely delivered of something, right?
Yeah.
If you do not fill it up with the goodness of God, the presence of God, the Holy Spirit,
as opposed to the stuff that you used to play with, then that thing is going to come back
and he's going to bring his buddies and all hell is going to break loose.
And it's going to be like, things are actually worse than what they had been before.
And so even when we'll go back to relationship really quick, because when you were talking,
I was like, that's it.
Like you could sit here and say, well, I don't cuss at my wife.
Yeah.
Well, I don't, you know, the guy at the gym, babe, you know, you're like, tell the story.
Okay.
So I love this story.
We're going to, we're going to do a whole podcast just based on the story.
It'll be fun.
Yeah.
But I'm sitting there lifting and he's, he's lifting next to me on the bench next to me.
And it's between sets.
And all of a sudden he just looks at me like he wants to start a conversation.
And he's like, Hey, I see you're married.
I'm like, yeah.
And I'm like, where are you going with this?
He's like, do you ever go home from work and just start a fight with your wife?
No.
He's like, man, maybe it's just me, but sometimes I just, I just get riled up at work and I
just go home and I just randomly start a fight with my wife.
I don't do that.
Why would you do that?
Yeah, no.
So that would be a negative.
That would be a negative.
And so sometimes it would be like, okay, so this gentleman, right.
And he was very kind.
He was a really good guy.
There was a moment where we're like, do you need to talk?
Are you okay?
You know, do you feel safe?
Does your wife feel safe?
You know, so it's like, but it's one of those where if this gentleman like, well, I didn't
pick a fight with my wife when I got home.
Yeah.
Well, that's great.
But did you say, hi honey, how are you today?
I love you.
How are you doing?
What can I do for you?
You know, it's, we could sit here and pull out all the negatives out of our lives.
But if we do not put back the good, if we don't allow the Holy Spirit to come in, okay.
So there's your spiritual life.
If you're not watching, I'll go to the extreme.
If you're not watching porn, if you're not having extramarital affairs, if you're not
all of this stuff, okay, that's, that's ma'am, God bless you.
That is great.
But listen to me, friends.
If you don't allow the Holy Spirit to come in and become that first love and show you
the goodness of who he is, you're not going to be able to sustain that.
You know, it's because that grip will, they'll bring their buddies back.
They'll bring themselves with their buddies and we want you to succeed.
We want you to succeed.
And it's like, and if you're doing like, okay, you're wanting to have a lifestyle change,
just the way you're eating.
That's what got me on this, this journey is I'm, I'm of an age where my body is changing
into a different season of life.
Menopause is, is upon us is what's happening.
We're watching things happen.
And what you do is you say, okay, I'm, I'm going to, let me say it this way.
You're going to acknowledge what you see.
Yeah.
Acknowledge, acknowledge those weaknesses.
We've talked about it in the past and other podcasts.
We need to acknowledge where can I build?
What can I change?
What do I need to do?
Do I need to do something extra or do I need to eliminate something?
And it's it, it literally, if we learn these life lessons now and we start renewing our
minds first and, and not letting the enemy try to talk us out, psych us out or say, oh,
you know, you're a failure.
Oh man, this is how it's going to be the rest of your life.
You say, no, man, no father.
I'm asking that you give me wisdom.
You show me, give me a greater understanding of what's going on in this situation, whether
it's mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever that is, show me what I can do, what
I can add or what I can eliminate.
And then that way I can move forward and then I'm asking that you, you surround me with
people that will help encourage me, that will keep me accountable, that will love me enough
to say, you don't seem okay today.
What can I do for you?
You know, and be that person, you know, so that, that would be my big takeaway, I think
today.
Because when you start doing that in your life, when, when there does need to be a correction,
all of a sudden it's just a small tweak here and there versus a hard right to the left,
right?
Or hard right to the left, hard turn to the left.
Hard right to the left.
If people saw our hand signals.
You know, but again, you know, so it's, so it is, it's, you know, just one degree here,
two degrees there, you know, instead of, you know, a full 90 or, or even worse a full 180.
Yeah.
Which sometimes our lives need that.
But yeah, you know, sometimes it, it is better to get to that point where all of a sudden
I just need to do tweaks here and there.
Yeah.
You know, versus major life change.
Right.
But I think if we, if we create these lifestyles, if we create these habits, I keep saying lifestyles,
but that habits I think is the word that I'm wanting to say.
But if we, if we create these habits now in every area of our lives, even the 180s don't
become hard.
They're, because we already know, you already know the fruit of it.
You already know the benefits.
You already know, you know, the investment that you're going to get out.
We're going to do this the rest of our lives.
We're going to, we're going to choose to love each other the rest of our lives.
We're going to choose to date our children and date you, date each other, date you, date
you, your mind, but date each other.
You know what I mean?
We're going to choose to be kind to people.
We're going to choose to, you know, it's, it's that constant choice.
I'm always going to choose to walk in the character of Christ.
Yeah.
And when I don't, man, Holy Spirit's just like, bam, hey, that was dumb bonehead.
Are you serious right now?
Oh my gosh, father, forgive me.
Because it's like, it's become, it's such an extreme at that point.
And our lives are already in that vein of, I, I want to live a life of excellence.
I want to live a life that's set apart.
I want to set an example and I want to leave a legacy for my children and my children's
children and our friends and people around us, our family.
I want to break off these generational curses.
I want to do all of this stuff.
And again, it's that what am I investing in today?
What are the dividends?
What am I getting back?
What kind of return do I get to see?
And if you don't like the return that you're seeing in certain areas of your life, then
focus, refocus, readjust, get real with yourself.
You want to, you want to see your life improve in great and mighty ways.
You want to live abundantly above and beyond what you can ever ask or think, then start
allowing the Holy Spirit to just say, put a magnifying glass on me, God, and show me
what you want to do.
Yeah.
I like it.
I do too, babe.
This was a good one.
I like this.
Thanks, yeah.
I like your title.
Thank you.
I like our talks.
I do too.
I like you.
And we like our listeners.
Yes, we do.
Getting new listeners all the time.
Yeah.
We appreciate you.
Look for us on social media, Upfront and Undivided.
I know we're on Instagram.
We're on Twitter.
I don't think we're on Facebook yet.
I probably need to do that.
It's like I put stuff up on there off of my personal page, but I think, yeah, I think
it's time for us to... We're working on things, guys.
We're working it out.
Yeah.
Reach out to us.
You can find us pretty much anywhere you find podcasts.
Yeah.
Like, share, review.
Yeah.
Let us know what you think.
If you have questions, let us know because we'll gladly talk about whatever topic you
want to throw at us.
Yeah.
So I think that's it.
Y'all have a great week.
Enjoy your journey.
And we'll see you later.
Yeah.
Bye.