The Marriage Communication Toolkit with Daniel Moore - 45

A strong marriage can still drift into silence, and it usually happens in plain sight. We sit down with Daniel Moore, marriage counselor, ministry leader, and author of "The Marriage Communication Toolkit: How to Talk and Truly Be Heard", to get honest about why couples stop talking, why “logistics only” conversations kill closeness, and how to rebuild connection without turning every hard moment into a fight.

We dig into the real pressure points that show up in struggling relationships, from financial stress and unfair chore expectations to time-management challenges and unmet emotional needs. Daniel shares why our words carry weight, how Proverbs 18:21 reframes everyday speech, and what “speaking life” looks like when you are frustrated. We also talk about gratitude as a practical reset, plus the danger of letting phones, busy schedules, and kid-centered routines push spouses into living like roommates.

You will leave with concrete communication tools you can try today: active listening habits, reflective responses, clarifying questions, validating emotions, and understanding love languages so your care actually lands. Daniel also explains how to create daily, weekly, and monthly connection rhythms that prevent small issues from piling up into resentment, and he previews his upcoming verse-by-verse study of Isaiah on his Connecting the Gap platform.

Subscribe, share this with a couple who needs hope, and leave us a review so more families can find these tools.

Want to purchase this resource?

It's available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4b9mcl4

This book is also available online, anywhere you can purchase books.

You can also visit our website at https://www.marriagelifeandmore.com to learn more about our ministry and purchase other resources, including this book.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Daniel

Kim McIntire 0:08

Hey everyone, welcome to the It's Time to Rise Up Podcast. I'm your host, Kim McIntire. I pray you are encouraged, strengthened, and blessed by what is spoken today. If you're not familiar with our show, please check out our website at it'stimetoriseup.org where you will find our social media links. And for our podcast platforms, you can find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you find your podcast. I would like to welcome into the studio Daniel Moore. Hey Daniel.

Daniel Moore 0:39

Hello, how are you?

Kim McIntire 0:40

How are you doing?

Daniel Moore 0:40

I'm good.

Kim McIntire 0:41

I'm glad you're here.

Daniel Moore 0:42

Me too.

Kim McIntire 0:43

You're a repeat guest.

Daniel Moore 0:44

I am.

Kim McIntire 0:45

I think you've been on a few times.

Daniel Moore 0:46

A couple at least.

Kim McIntire 0:47

Yes. Well, I'm glad you're here. Um, Daniel, for those who haven't heard um any of the previous episodes that we've had Daniel on, he is our Rise Up podcast producer. Um, our technician, our internet technician, not internet technician. Help me. Our tech guy.

Daniel Moore 1:06

Tech guy for rise up. Tech guy for rise.

Kim McIntire 1:08

I guess that's a good title for that. There you go. And you do an awesome job. Um, he's a published author, the podcast host of Marriage and More, along with his wife, Michelle, which is broadcast through his ministry platform, Connecting the Gap. He's also a marriage counselor, and there are many other titles we could fill in here. Everett's like, oh yeah, and he used to be a firefighter. You should say that too.

Daniel Moore 1:34

Yeah, kind of my as my wife says, a jack of all trades. Jack of all trades. Or Daniel of all trades. I can't.

Kim McIntire 1:40

I know, I think I'm forgetting many, many other things, but also a dear friend. So welcome back, Daniel, and it's good to have you here. You recently published your third book, The Marriage Communication Toolkit: How to Talk and Truly Be Heard.

Daniel Moore 1:58

Yes.

Kim McIntire 1:59

Congratulations.

Daniel Moore 2:00

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Kim McIntire 2:01

You have two other books out: Marriage as a Mission, Living Out God's Design for Marriage, and 42 Days to a Stronger Marriage, a Christ-centered devotional for couples, which is a daily devotional format, correct?

Daniel Moore 2:14

That is correct. For 42 days.

Kim McIntire 2:16

Yes, 42 days. You and Michelle have a remarkable testimony about how God saved your marriage, and now you're literally pouring out that testimony into other lives.

Rapid Fire And Real Life Habits

Kim McIntire 2:25

Yes. What a blessing.

Daniel Moore 2:26

We just thank God for all of it.

Kim McIntire 2:28

He's so good.

Daniel Moore 2:29

Yes, he is.

Kim McIntire 2:29

He's using you guys in amazing ways. So I want to start the interview off with some rapid fire questions. Okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. Here we go. Daniel, if you have a free afternoon all to yourself, what's the one thing you most enjoy doing?

Daniel Moore 2:44

Actually, it's doing study and Bible study and writing and stuff like that.

Kim McIntire 2:51

You sound like quite honest. You sound like me.

Daniel Moore 2:54

Yeah, every every opportunity, like my wife's gone for the afternoon or something like that. I'm usually because the podcast, I script all of those as well and all that kind of thing. So it's a constant thing for me just to constantly be writing something. So rather than take my time away from family, take time away from her, then I usually take advantage of those moments and well it's good you enjoy it. I'll be sitting down writing or or whatever.

Kim McIntire 3:20

That's so good. I love to read and write too. When you were a kid, what did you want to be?

Daniel Moore 3:25

Actually, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a police officer.

Kim McIntire 3:28

Oh wow.

Daniel Moore 3:29

My dad was a police officer, and several of my uncles were police officers. That's just something I always wanted to be. But because you had to go to college for that, never really had the opportunity back when I grew up, the hours were really long to be a police officer and the money involved and all that. So instead, as you mentioned earlier, I became a firefighter. Yeah. Done that instead.

Kim McIntire 3:50

Did you love that?

Daniel Moore 3:51

I did. I did it for 14 years. Uh I will be honest, I think as a firefighter, they're medics now also. And so I was I was a medic at that time.

Kim McIntire 4:02

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 4:02

And but we did it all. We did the fires, the wrecks, the medicals, we did everything that you can think of. But I honestly enjoyed the medical stuff more than I did actual firefighting or the wrecks and all that kind of stuff. I fire fighting fire was okay. It wasn't my favorite thing to do. Yeah. But so I just progressed up the ladder to just becoming a pump operator and stuff. So I really didn't go inside a whole lot after I was there for a while. But I I really enjoyed the medicals and the other stuff a lot more.

Kim McIntire 4:32

That's cool. That would be the last thing I would ever pick. Anything medical, keep me away.

Daniel Moore 4:36

Yeah.

Kim McIntire 4:37

I'm yeah. So I r I really respect people who do though. Um, the best trip you ever took was that one is tough.

Daniel Moore 4:44

I think it's probably gonna have to be last year. We went on a cruise to the Bahamas.

Kim McIntire 4:49

Nice.

Daniel Moore 4:50

And so I would say at this point, that's probably got to be my one of my favorites. We love to go to Colorado also.

Kim McIntire 4:56

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 4:56

So it's hard, it's kind of hard to, you know, those are kind of equal.

Kim McIntire 5:00

Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. It's a a beautiful beach, it's hard to beat, but mountains are hard to beat too.

Daniel Moore 5:07

That's for sure.

Kim McIntire 5:07

So you are married to my friend Michelle. What is her best quality?

Daniel Moore 5:13

She is one of the most giving people that you will ever meet. And I think you know that.

Kim McIntire 5:19

I do.

Daniel Moore 5:19

Uh she loves to serve other people. She's an awesome host hostess when we do life groups and and stuff like that. Uh she's just a very kind-hearted, very thoughtful person, and she keeps me grounded because I'm a little bit more rough around the edges a lot of times, and things may happen, and I might want to approach it the a little bit rougher way, you know, and she she'll come in and kind of tame it down a little bit before I get to it.

Kim McIntire 5:45

She softens you.

Daniel Moore 5:46

That's right.

Kim McIntire 5:46

She softens you. I would agree with that.

Daniel Moore 5:48

But I I love that attribute about her.

Kim McIntire 5:50

She's amazing. I love her.

Daniel Moore 5:51

Yep.

Kim McIntire 5:53

Ten years from now, what do you see yourself doing?

Daniel Moore 5:57

I really hope to see myself still doing a lot of ministry stuff that I'm involved with right now. It's been a season of my life that I've really enjoyed, and it's something that I wanted to do, you know, for a long time before I even started doing it, but the doors just hadn't opened yet, and of course I'm glad they hadn't, because you know how that how that works. God prepares us until we get to that open door. Um, but I really I hope that, you know, for the a long time that I'll be able to keep doing what I'm doing and well, you guys are wonderful at it as a couple, just serving together in ministry. She's a very huge asset.

Kim McIntire 6:35

Well, you guys compliment each other for sure. What is one thing on your bucket list you haven't accomplished or experienced yet?

Daniel Moore 6:44

Oh boy. Um I've done a lot. You have? Uh when I probably thinking about that one, there's there's probably there's a couple of trips that I would like to go on that I haven't done yet. One of them might happen next year, but my wife and I are trying to get to Ireland. Oh wow. So if everything goes well, we're gonna actually do that next summer. So that's something we're planning on right now. But um there's other places, probably just going places is probably my biggest thing at this point.

Kim McIntire 7:14

Traveling places you haven't been.

Daniel Moore 7:17

Yeah, because there's so many beautiful places out there that just go out and enjoy that, you know. It's like awesome.

Kim McIntire 7:25

And so scenery you don't get in Missouri.

Daniel Moore 7:29

Exactly. Yeah.

Kim McIntire 7:30

We are located in Missouri, it's beautiful, but not like other people.

Daniel Moore 7:35

Not like Ireland, right? Yeah, exactly.

Kim McIntire 7:37

Um the other question I had was when you're having a bad day, how do you relieve stress?

Daniel Moore 7:45

I go to a quiet place. There you go. I have a personality that I can just sit by myself and be completely 100% happy. And peace and quiet is my friend.

Kim McIntire 7:58

Yes.

Daniel Moore 7:59

Now a lot of people wouldn't think that about me that know me because I am also outgoing and I you know I talk a lot sometimes and that kind of thing. But I can get back in my quiet spot, and that's probably where I retreat to if I have because I can give me a chance to really think things through and pray a little bit and just kind of get my head wrapped around stuff before I proceed further.

Kim McIntire 8:22

So that's my that's my same reaction to stress. I need some quiet time alone. Give me the Lord time with the Lord and everything will be fine.

Daniel Moore 8:31

Yep, that's right.

Kim McIntire 8:33

Um one place you've never been to that you hope to see before heaven.

Daniel Moore 8:38

Well, Ireland's one of them.

Kim McIntire 8:39

Okay, so there you go.

Daniel Moore 8:40

Two feet.

Kim McIntire 8:41

You answered two feet.

Daniel Moore 8:43

I would also love to go to New Zealand.

Kim McIntire 8:45

Oh, okay.

Daniel Moore 8:46

Uh, everything I've ever seen about New Zealand, it looks like it's beautiful, an awesome place.

Kim McIntire 8:50

Yeah, yeah. My parents so not my no, not my parents. My daughter's been to New Zealand. She said it was incredible. Yeah.

Daniel Moore 8:56

Yeah, it looks fantastic.

Kim McIntire 8:58

Well, I think it would be worth it. I don't know if I'll ever get there. I think it'd be worth going for sure.

Daniel Moore 9:02

Yeah.

Kim McIntire 9:03

Um did you have a celebrity childhood crush?

Daniel Moore 9:10

A celebrity childhood crush probably would have been probably Reese Witherspoon.

Kim McIntire 9:19

Okay.

Daniel Moore 9:20

Yeah.

Kim McIntire 9:20

That's funny.

Daniel Moore 9:21

I used to watch any movie that she was in when I was younger.

Kim McIntire 9:24

That's funny. Well, mine was Donnie Osmond. And he's a little older than Reese, but I guess that shows the difference in our ages. But anyway.

Why This Book Exists

Kim McIntire 9:32

Well, Daniel, let's get right into um talking about your book. At the end of this interview, I'll have you share how we can get your book. Um, but you have written a book on marriage, a marriage devotional, and now this is your third um basically marriage book. How is this one different than the other two that you've already published?

Daniel Moore 9:58

Well, the first book that I wrote, which is Marriage is a Mission, we did an episode on that one, actually.

Kim McIntire 10:04

Yeah, oh, and please go back.

Daniel Moore 10:05

Yes.

Kim McIntire 10:06

Go back into the podcast and and re listen to that interview.

Daniel Moore 10:09

It's probably been a year ago or something.

Kim McIntire 10:10

It was a great interview, yeah.

Daniel Moore 10:12

Uh that book was more about why marriage is a thing biblically. Because God had a purpose in marriage, and it wasn't just for us just to be hooked up with somebody, right? Having kids and and all that kind of thing. He's got a kingdom purpose for us being married. And a lot of couples, I don't think, realize that. Yeah, we go to church, we do life groups, we do Sunday school, whatever the church functions may be, we are involved in all of that, and we love the Lord.

Kim McIntire 10:43

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 10:44

And, you know, we try to do all of the Christian things that Christian couples typically do, but I think in a lot of ways we don't dig into it deep enough to really see exactly what God expects out of us as a married couple that's following Christ. And so that book went basically kind of a deep dive into that and just kind of put the kingdom purpose out there.

Kim McIntire 11:06

I felt like it was foundational.

Daniel Moore 11:08

Yeah, it's it's yeah, a lot of foundational stuff in it for marriages. Yes, and having you know how the kids equate into all of that, and there's just a lot of different things. So that was the first book. The second one was just the devotional type of thing, and so that's kind of self-explanatory. This one here, this book is kind of birthed out of my, you know, my wife and I do marriage mentoring, we do premarital counseling and of course have our marriage podcasts and everything. So we're involved, you know, with a lot of people that are married that are having issues. And so we get asked a lot our opinion on things, and uh people come to us for support and that kind of stuff. And I will tell you, one of the biggest issues

Divorce Pressure Points And Communication

Daniel Moore 11:50

that we run across is communication.

Kim McIntire 11:53

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 11:53

And as a matter of fact, there's a new poll that came out here not too long ago, the top five reasons for divorce. And for quite some time, communication was actually number one and two, depending on which poll you looked at. Um, but now the going rate is it's actually number three. So number one is money and finances, which I believe, because we do run into that a lot also. There's a lot of things about that couples don't think about when they first get married. And so they get together, especially blended families have a worse issue with it.

Kim McIntire 12:26

Oh, sure.

Daniel Moore 12:27

Because usually when you're blended, you're more in your 20s, 30s, or 40s, maybe before you actually get married to your spouse. So there's already a track record there, there's already financial um stability going on, your obligations, bills, you're combining stuff that you don't typically have as newlyweds. And so all of a sudden one spouse is like, well, I was handling my finances fine until I got married. Now it seems like since I married you, we can't, we had never have any money. You know, it's like you always tell me I can't do this, I can't. So you have this whole dynamic that starts taking place with all of that. The second one is equality and chores now of what one spouse thinks the other one should be doing. And that kind of goes back. My first book kind of deals with that a little bit because I think it's in this book a little bit too. Uh, you know, we're on a team. We're not here to compete against each other.

Kim McIntire 13:20

Right.

Daniel Moore 13:21

And if you're gonna be married to someone, you both need to be willing to pick up the load without grumbling, griping, and complaining.

Kim McIntire 13:28

Right.

Daniel Moore 13:28

You know, get in there and do it. That's that's what it's all about. Yeah, it's if one day it might not be equal on one side or the other, but it's gonna level out in the in the end.

Kim McIntire 13:37

Sure.

Daniel Moore 13:37

So third is communication now. It's moved to number three, fourth is sexual desires, and five is time management. And so communication's right up there. And, you know, it's it's something that I think a lot of couples, there's no handbook, and we learn a lot of our communication from our parents. Uh, the way that our parents communicated as we grew up, that's where we, you know, learn a lot of our uh processes of how we communicate with each other, and we don't understand that some of that stuff's not right. Uh, you know, I mean, I've said it several times on different podcast episodes that I've done that I love my parents to death, but they were not good communicators. They got divorced after 20 years. And, you know, and I learned I learned a lot of of bad habits from them. And as I've kind of, you know, dove into some of this stuff and been involved with it a lot, uh, it's come to my realization that, you know, husbands and wives, they can pretty much sit in the same home, they can share the same room, go to the same church, have the same kids, and but yet, you know, they can feel miles apart.

Kim McIntire 14:46

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 14:47

Uh they just they don't talk. They don't, and when they do talk, it's all work talk or logistics. It's not heart talk or emotional talk. Um, it's not trying to figure out emotionally what's going on inside. And is there something that I can help you with? Is there something that you need? You know, things start. Matter of fact, our episodes that we're going

When Couples Drift Into Separate Lives

Daniel Moore 15:05

through right now in our podcast deal with some of this uh as far as roles in marriage and putting Christ in the center of marriage. And, you know, a lot of families today put kids in front of their marriages.

Kim McIntire 15:17

That's true.

Daniel Moore 15:18

And a lot of people out there thinking, well, what's wrong with that? You know, I love my kids. Well, that wasn't God's plan. God's plan is God, your spouse, and then your kids. Because someday, if you don't communicate like you should be and take care of each other emotionally and in a way that you should as a husband and wife, and you pour all the time and effort into your kids and do anything and everything for your kids and neglect yourselves, someday when them kids are gone in your empty nesters, you're gonna be sitting across each other in the same room looking at each other, not knowing what to even say. You know, and you're probably gonna be getting on each other's nerves. You've not trained yourself how to have decent communication between each other and prepare yourselves for that time when you're all by yourself and now you two have to talk.

Kim McIntire 16:02

I'm amazed at how many couples are living this kind of a life after their children leave. Um the man has a room with a television, and the woman has a space with a television or a hobby room. And that's not a place to retreat to on a day off. It's their rhythm to watch TV separately, sometimes even sleep separately in separate beds.

Daniel Moore 16:33

We see a lot of that.

Kim McIntire 16:34

Um I'm hearing that more and more among couples in their 60s, 70s, um, just really they live in the same home, but they aren't living life together. They're just living under the same roof, but they're not actually enjoying one another, sharing life together, talking, communicating, and in just you know, everyday things. Yeah like sitting at a table and eating together or sharing the same bed for sleeping, you know. I know in different seasons of your marriage, intimacy can change because of you know, our bodies change. But I still hope that when my I'm Everett and I are in our 70s and 80s that we're still holding each other and cut cuddling up in our bed, you know what I mean? So, but I think it's really important because if you're not sharing conversation, you're not sharing life.

Daniel Moore 17:33

Yeah. I've talked to several people that do the separate bedroom thing, just nonchalantly asking questions because it's always intrigued me that it could get that way. I'm like you. I hope I I hope it never ends up that way for Michelle and and myself. It's not my plan. Uh but you know they'll use excuses. Well, they they snore and you know, just all those different excuses that they come up with, and it's like, well, some of us snore when we're 30, so what's the difference that it's 70 or 80, you know?

Kim McIntire 18:05

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 18:05

It it that still though, you have to remember that when we're truly in love with each other, we only have a season. We're here on this earth for so long, this is temporary. Yeah. And then someday we're gonna be going on to heaven where marriage does not happen. And so to me, I want to make sure, and uh, some of it probably comes back to the fact of how much I love my wife. I hate to say this, but I think a lot of times and things that I've noticed and just talking to different people, I think a lot of times when they do end up separately in other bedrooms and and those kinds of things, they say they love each other, but sometimes I really wonder what type of a love is that and how deep is that true love? How do they truly look at their spouse intimately and with that heart of Christ? Do they really, really love that person like they think they do? Because I couldn't even imagine myself wanting to be away from Michelle like that. I wouldn't like it. You know, that's just not what marriage is to me. And so, and I don't want to knock anybody that's in this position that you've got your reasons or whatever, so be it. But just coming from a marriage ministry standpoint, knowing what God expects out of us as a married couple and how he created an intimacy is not just sexual, there is all kinds of different intimacies in marriage.

Kim McIntire 19:33

Oh, yeah.

Daniel Moore 19:33

God created us to be very intimate type people, our relationship with God is intimate. That's right, and he doesn't want us to separate us ourselves from him. And so we have to bring it back to the way that I treat God and the way that God treats me biblically. You can read all through Ephesians especially. That's how we're to treat our spouses. Yeah. And so anytime that we divide ourselves from that, I think you know, Satan really does kind of get in there and play a little bit. He, you know, Satan can't create anything, but he can definitely distort a lot of things. And sometimes what looks like the right thing to us, if we don't pray that through, we're we might not be on the right path. We really need to pray about a lot of those things. Uh our relationships and our marriages are sacred.

Kim McIntire 20:18

That's so true.

Daniel Moore 20:19

And we have to make sure that we keep that in mind and keep that uh process in our in our minds of how God created the marriage and what he expected it to be and to do that.

Kim McIntire 20:28

Yeah. I can tell that you're passionate about couples communicating. And one of the things that I want to I want to point out about the book, listeners, you need to buy this book. Whether you have a great marriage or a struggling marriage, or you know someone who has a struggling marriage, I feel like there's truth in this for everyone, no matter where they're at in their life. Even if you haven't gotten married yet, but you want to prepare yourself for it. But you every chapter you have the title, and then you have biblical foundation. So for example, in chapter one, you have God's blueprint for communication, and then you've drawn from Genesis 2, Proverbs 18, Ephesians 4. I just want to say I love that you're using God's word as the guide for what you're teaching. It's directly from Scripture. So I don't know. For me, that's very meaningful. I take I I take things more seriously when I know they're rooted in God's word.

Daniel Moore 21:33

You know, well the world has a lot of answers.

Kim McIntire 21:35

But they're godly, right?

Daniel Moore 21:37

Yeah. But unless you go back to biblical answers and how God expected it to be and created it to be, then to me that's not a very good foundation to build on.

Kim McIntire 21:48

Absolutely.

Daniel Moore 21:49

It it just isn't.

Speaking Life And The Power Of Words

Kim McIntire 21:50

Something that stood out, well, there are many things, but you know, for the purpose of this interview, something that really stood out to me. And I think it's because of what I notice around me and what I notice in myself is sometimes it seems that we aren't speaking life. And and you have this section about speaking life by aligning your words with God's heart. I just would love for you to share about this this specific part of your book, Daniel, and why this is so significant.

Daniel Moore 22:28

Okay. A lot of this came from the fact that as married couples, if they aren't in a good place, they don't speak life into each other. They tear down. And, you know, at the core of this whole idea, we have to understand that our words possess power both to build and to tear down people. We've got to remember and take ourselves all the way back to the very beginning. How did God create the earth?

Kim McIntire 22:54

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 22:54

He spoke it.

Kim McIntire 22:55

Yes.

Daniel Moore 22:56

There is power in words. Tremendous power in words. And God used those words to speak everything into existence, including us. Here we are married couples. We're using our words to cut each other down, tear each other apart, criticize, um, you know, backstab, uh, just whatever you whatever term that you can come up with. I see it happen all the time. Deceive. Deceive, yes, lie. I mean, there's manipulate. There's so many things as married couples that we do to each other, and it's sickening. My my wife and I were at Sam's here about two or three weeks ago, and we were back um by the dairy section. We'd walked around the corner, and there's this couple standing there, and they were kind of going back and forth for a minute, and all of a sudden the guy starts yelling at her. He turns around and starts to storm off out the store and leaves her standing there with her cart. She says, I need the money. So he turns around and pulls a wallet out of his pocket. He was literally 20 feet from her, throws his wallet, clear across that 20-foot to her, and just and storms out the front door. My wife, I mean, we sit there, it was like, we felt so bad for her. It's like, and I know there's two sides to the story. I totally get it. I understand that. But to display something like that in public, you can only imagine what it's like at home. Privately. Or behind closed doors. And I couldn't live in a relationship like that. Well, I my wife and I did at one point for a little bit, if you listen to our testimony. I don't want to go back to that. Um, that is not fun. There's you know, there's nothing about that at all that intrigues me. And, you know, the the Bible says in Proverbs 18 21 that death and life are in the power of the tongue. Yes. And I don't think we take that scripture very seriously sometimes to understand that when we do cut people down and talk bad to them and uh, you know, be mean with our words, exactly what we're doing. And, you know, with the whole concept behind this aligning your words with God's heart, it begins with awareness of the values and truths that are found in scripture, because God's heart reflects kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and encouragement. If we take our words and we use those words to be kind to our spouses, to be compassionate, to forgive, even if they don't we don't feel like they deserve it, but to forgive them like Christ does us, and to encourage our spouses. Can you imagine just the turnaround and how that would just shape you know the marriages and the and the conversations of the marriages and just completely you know recreate the atmosphere? And it makes it a place that you want to be, it makes it a place that you flourish and it draws you closer to Christ.

Kim McIntire 25:44

Absolutely.

Daniel Moore 25:45

If we take those attributes and and show those towards our spouses, knowing that we're doing what God wants us to do in our relationships and our marriages, then that can only make our relationship with God even better.

Kim McIntire 25:58

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 25:58

And then He pours more into us so that we can pour more into each other.

Kim McIntire 26:02

It's true.

Daniel Moore 26:02

It's just a cycle.

Kim McIntire 26:04

You speak into gratitude as well in that section. And one of the things that I have found that has been helpful in our marriage is if I'm frustrated with Everett or angry, I try quickly to remind myself why I'm grateful for him before I go too far off track. Yeah. Because gratitude will change your mindset. There's there's always something to be grateful for in your spouse. Um, and so I love that you talked about gr and expressing it, not just thinking about it, but expressing it. That's that's life as well when you're speaking gratitude to your to your husband or wife.

Daniel Moore 26:49

Well, a lot of times we're reactive. Reactive, yeah. We never want to we don't want to say the good things. We hardly ever speak those out a lot of times if we're not proactive to do that, but we sure will bring up the negative stuff.

Kim McIntire 27:02

It's true. It's true.

Daniel Moore 27:04

And I know a lot of couples or a lot of married people that's probably listening to me right now, if you really sit down and think about your track record with your spouse, you know exactly what I'm saying.

Kim McIntire 27:13

Yes.

Daniel Moore 27:13

And so we have to train our minds and train our brains to be on the positive side of our marriage. And and even, of course, too, when it comes to the negative side, you have there's certain ways that you approach that negative side. And I I lay that a lot of that out in this book. You don't just go attack your spouse. Right. You know, there are ways that you approach conversations so that you don't shut doors and build walls. Because all it takes, again, as the scripture says, that there's power in words that they can destroy, all it takes is one word just to build a huge wall between you and your spouse, and all of a sudden you're not talking for 30 days because you're mad at each other and you cannot communicate through the problem you're having enough to solve it. It's true. So there's ways that you have to approach that.

Active Listening That Changes Conflict

Kim McIntire 27:59

And just like you talk about how we speak and the importance of that, speaking life, aligning our words with God's heart, you also teach the reader about how to be an active listener. Can you share with our listeners what it means? What are some keys to being an active listener?

Daniel Moore 28:22

Well, the the core thing behind this one to keep in mind is there was a study by the Microsoft Corporation that found that the average person's attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish, and that clocks in at about eight seconds.

Kim McIntire 28:36

Oh my word.

Daniel Moore 28:37

That's the average attention span of an adult. And the reason for that is if you take hearing, there's a difference between just hearing somebody and there's a and actively hearing somebody. So hearing in its basic form, it's a physiological process. Basically, that's perception of sound waves in your ear. Okay. So while we may hear someone's words, it doesn't guarantee that we truly heard somebody's words. As the old saying goes, it went in one ear and out the other, okay, or over the head, or whatever, whatever. There's lots of little phrases for that. And what can happen with that is that can lead to frustrations, misunderstandings, unspoken expectations. And it can lead to all of these things, which then translates over into a big fight later. And then you start getting the accusatory lines like, you never listen to me.

Kim McIntire 29:30

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 29:30

You never want to do anything that I ask you to do. I might as well, I might as well talk to the wall. We start seeing all these absolutes start being thrown out at every all in all your sentences and everything, accusing, and it's actually basically a lie, because nobody never does anything or always does something.

Kim McIntire 29:48

Right.

Daniel Moore 29:48

Um, that's a blatant write-out lie because there are times that you probably do do that, but but that's when we're mad and frustrated, that's the first thing that we spout out. And so we have to retrain ourselves in how we listen to our spouses, and guys hate hearing this conversation because it's like it's funny because a lot of a lot of us as guys were like, oh, this is a lot of work. You know, it's like we all we always get this little thing going on. But you know what? If you want your relationship to work and you want to have the best marriage that you possibly ever can, it takes work. Truth. I'm not gonna lie to you, you have to work at it. But just some of the things that you can do when it comes to active listening is what the purpose of it is so that your your spouse knows that you are listening and hearing what they're saying. Yeah. And I don't care if you're a male or female, that validates each side of it. If either one of us, if myself or if Michelle does not feel like the one of us or the other is truly listening, then that then discounts how we feel we are uh uh appreciated in the marriage, the perception that our spouse has of us, and so then it it starts, it can be a depressing type of thing. I mean, it can really just drag you down after a while if you feel like you're always talking but never being heard. And so there's some steps that you can take to do that, and I go through these pretty in you know in depth in the book, but to give you some ideas is to create a distraction-free environment. What's one of the biggest things right now that we have on us 24-7 that usually gets more attention than our spouse? Yeah, it's our cell phone. That's of one of the biggest issues. You can both be sitting on one end of the couch and the other on the other end of the couch, and literally four hours can pass and you not know one thing that your spouse just did because you were you're sitting there paying paying attention to your phone. They might have been talking to you and you wouldn't have even known. It happens all the time. Sure. So we need to make sure that we have those times of not that you just put the phone down indefinitely, which we sometimes wish we could, but you got to have some space there for your spouse without that. Maintain eye contact, use affirmative body language, practice reflective listening. What that means is when somebody, when your spouse says something to you, and you're keeping eye contact so that they know that you're listening, and you're giving them positive body language so that they understand that I'm in communication with you right now and I want to hear what you're saying. And then when they do say something to you, then you you go, okay, so what you're saying to me then is this, this, and that, and this. So when you repeat what that spouse just told you, that affirms that yes, that's what the spouse is needing to know. That lets that spouse know that you did hear what they just said, and then you carry on the conversation by answering those questions. Um so that's what reflective listening is. Ask clarifying questions. If the spouse says something, you don't understand it, come back and ask a question. So does that mean this then, if this is the way you're putting it, you know, to get some clarification? That again lets the other spouse know that, hey, I'm interested in this conversation. Sure. And I want to make sure that I answer it correctly.

Kim McIntire 32:57

If it's not correct, they can clarify that.

Daniel Moore 32:58

Yes, they can clarify that to you. Validate their emotions. And this is probably more of a female thing than a male thing. A lot of females, you know, are very emotional in the attributes that they have. And so a lot of guys want to be the tough guy and don't want to let their emotions show. And so that is a lacking area a lot of times in spouses because the the the wife may have something that she's wanting to talk about and it's very emotional to her, and the guy may dumb that down and act like, oh, it's not no big deal and just bypass it. Well, then her emotional needs are not met. And so that's very important to validate emotions, avoid interrupting or formulating responses prematurely. Everybody, one of the biggest problems with with uh active listening that we all do is especially in conflictive situations, if there's a conflict, as soon as our spouse starts talking to us, we hear approximately about six to seven words of that on an average of the first sentence that they speak. By the time they hit the sixth or seventh word, most of us are already thinking in our head what our rebuttal is gonna be. We're already thinking of our smart electric comment that we're gonna make or the how we're gonna escalate this argument even more. So we don't hear the rest of the sentence necessarily, maybe bits and pieces of it, but we sure know what we're gonna say when they're done talking, or we're gonna cut them off before they're done talking, and then we're gonna tell them our piece. Sure. And you're gonna listen to me because I'm gonna talk louder and louder and louder over you so you can't start talking again.

Kim McIntire 34:29

This is reminding me of our first years of marriage. Thank goodness we're not in that spot anymore.

Daniel Moore 34:34

It's a lot of couples go through this.

Kim McIntire 34:36

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 34:37

Show patience, provide thoughtful responses, don't just give one-word answers. Guys are real bad about that.

Kim McIntire 34:43

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 34:43

Uh, wives want to want some answers. And subs are us guys do too. If we have a serious question, we want a good answer from a wife, so give that back to them. It's only fair.

Kim McIntire 34:53

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 34:53

Practice empathy. You know, a lot of times uh we need to get into their space a little bit and understand, try to understand what is it you're really going through, you know, and as as they talk through that and everything, try to feel a little bit about what they're feeling. And that kind of helps get a better response at that point. And you'll find out that if you do that, that your conversations will go much better. For sure.

Kim McIntire 35:20

Those are really good keys, Daniel. Even for someone who's just like in the middle of a situation right now, and they need a tool, right? Because this is a toolkit.

Daniel Moore 35:29

It is.

Kim McIntire 35:30

You talk about love languages as well.

Love Languages And Being Understood

Kim McIntire 35:32

And I think that there are lots of people who know about love languages. How important is it to know about love languages and what love language your spouse is?

Daniel Moore 35:44

It's hard to communicate without knowing your spouse's love language. We try it all the time. But what ends up happening is a good example. If a wife uh doesn't like gifts, let's say that uh let's say that she's words of affirmation. Okay, so the so the five gifts are words of affirmation, time, gifts, acts, and touch. Okay, those are the five. And of course, a lot of people have probably seen the book, The Five Love Languages, there's a ton of them now. Dr. Gary Chapman wrote all of these. It's an example. Who's the original? He's the original guy. And uh, so I so this is kind of I've I attribute a lot of this stuff to him and put the website on how to go learn more about it, but this is a huge part of communication. So if let's say your wife is words, and but the guy, every time they you know get into conflict or whatever, um he he associates women with liking gifts, a watch or necklace or something like that. They get to a conflict or whatever. So I'm like, he's like, Well, I'm I'm gonna fix this. He runs to the store when he's next time he's out and I'm gonna make up for this and buys a bracelet, brings it back and gives it to her, and it doesn't fix nothing.

Kim McIntire 36:59

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 36:59

Well, then he's all frustrated, and now it's escalating even more.

Kim McIntire 37:03

Because he doesn't get it.

Daniel Moore 37:04

He does because he doesn't know her love language. That's not how to speak to her. Right. She probably thought the bracelet was beautiful, don't get me wrong, and I'm sure she probably would love to wear it, but that didn't solve the problem.

Kim McIntire 37:14

But she would rather hear words of affirmation. Which is mine, by the way.

Daniel Moore 37:18

Is it? I'd have never known.

Kim McIntire 37:22

What's yours, Daniel?

Daniel Moore 37:24

Mine is I do like words of affirmation, probably time also. Yeah. Because you can have more than one.

Kim McIntire 37:31

Oh yeah.

Daniel Moore 37:31

Gifts are not really a thing. I touch is probably a little bit yeah. I I've got probably several of them actually that work for me.

Kim McIntire 37:40

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 37:40

But but yeah, if you don't if you don't know your partner's love language, then you're basically you're not gonna know the how, when, or why of how to say things and how to take care of conflicts and all of those things that happen. And quite honestly, you're probably gonna conflict a lot if you don't understand your your partner's love language. That's true.

Kim McIntire 38:03

Yeah.

Daniel Moore 38:04

And you may not even realize and attribute it to that's what it is. You may think it's something else, but you know, just try it.

Kim McIntire 38:11

Yeah, for sure.

Daniel Moore 38:12

Go to the love language website, there's a test there you can take, and if you pay for the premium, you can get it all. Yeah. Um, but you will get your main one if you take the free test, and you might be shocked at what your both of your languages are, and you'll probably right off the get-go figure out, well, this is probably where some of our problem is at. Yeah. You know, because if you don't get those right, you're not gonna be able to speak each other's language, and you're gonna constantly conflict in how you communicate.

Kim McIntire 38:40

Well, there are so many tools in this book that I don't think there's any way we could cover them all within one interview. But are there is there anything specific from this book that you really want to talk about before we talk about your next project?

Building Daily Weekly Monthly Rhythms

Daniel Moore 38:56

Yeah, uh one thing that I do want to to touch on here, just to kind of give a little wrap-up on everybody's thinking, well, uh, we know communication is the problem, and you know, we've been going through, and maybe some of the stuff we've talked about is resignated. How do how do we fix all of this? You know, what what's a go-to that we can use as a tool to be a starting point maybe of of resolving all this? Well, chapter 11, uh, the title of that chapter is creating a communication rhythm for your marriage. And this is something that I see neglected a lot, especially if there's kids in the home, uh, kids are playing sports, they're in every activity under the sun, you've got, you know, church activities, whatever it may be. Uh the spouses have a tendency to forget each other and not ever have any connection points. And something that's very important is you have to have connection points for just the two of you on a regular basis to stay in touch and figure out where each of you are at emotionally. Is there something we need to take care of? Is there some issues that need resolved? Those things stack up after a while if they're not fixed. Yeah. And once all that starts stacking up, the resentment starts going through the roof, and you start, we become testy, and it doesn't take much to pull our trigger. Oh, for sure. And and we're off to the races at that point. You need to establish daily, weekly, and monthly connection points, um, basically. And there's scripture for that. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 40, it's says, let all things be done decently and in order. There is an order in our marriage that that God wants us to have. And so I go through the three different daily connection points are the smallest, but they're probably the most powerful conversations in a marriage. So these are not, you know, real dramatic heart-to-heart, long drawn-out conversations by any means. Uh, these are just simple intentional moments of presence. You know, you might just say, uh, are we still emotionally present with each other today? Um, what was heavy today? Uh, where did you feel God show up? You know, just just little things just to start a little bit of a conversation, just check on each other.

Kim McIntire 41:03

That's good.

Daniel Moore 41:04

Uh, see how things are doing, just try to open that door a little bit, where if there is anything that needs to be taken care of. So once you take care of those, then there's the weekly. So the weekly provides a little bit more space for alignment and repair. So while the daily ones maintain closeness, because that's what our marriage is about, we want to make sure that we stay close to each other through everything that we go through. Uh, weekly conversations, they zoom out a little bit and ask, well, how are we really doing? And this is where the issues that don't fit into those little quick little check-ins, and that's where these things fit in and finally get to air. Uh, you know, and you want to set a time for that. One thing that we've found is spouses, they like predictability. If you if you leave it out there, is okay, sometime Saturday or Sunday, we'll find a time to connect and sit down and and talk about our weekly thing. Well, nine times out of ten, that time never happens. And so if you schedule that and you both stay intentional with it and make sure that you do it, uh, you'll find out that it's going to do wonders for your marriage. And so those would be, you know, if something a little bit bigger happened this week that didn't necessarily wasn't necessarily a huge thing, but it really couldn't be taken care of just in the little daily little tidbit. That weekly one is a good time to bring that up and try to work your way through that. The monthly connection points, um, these are ones that take communication beyond maintenance and into mission. So these conversations are less about the week-to-week grind and more about who you're becoming together. So this is where you start getting into the rhythms to uh figure out, you know, where were some places that we struggled this last month, or what were some places that actually strengthened us last month? What's God inviting to us next? This is where you can set your mission statement. Every marriage should have a mission statement, by the way. Um if you haven't ever set one, uh if you don't know what that is, uh you might need to might Google that or whatever. Michelle and I may need to do an episode on that sometime. Uh every uh marriage should have a mission.

Kim McIntire 43:05

Well, we don't have one, so talk a little bit about that.

Daniel Moore 43:08

That's where you're headed. Uh when you get married, it's a goal. You need to have a goal out there ahead of you that such and such time as we go through all of this with our kids and jobs and everything that where do we want to end up at as a couple? Not only in the scope of as just a married couple here, but in a godly way. Um for us, what what are some goals that we want to attain to help other people, to help other couples? Make sure that our kids are uh spiritually fed and when they get married that they're gonna be off on their own trip uh starting their own mission and their own mission statement. Uh, you know, you need to be constantly thinking about okay, I've got all the kids stuff going on, and I've got all the daily grind and the jobs and everything else. But w where does God have us in all of this? What is what is God's plan for where we are right now and how do we attain that plan?

Kim McIntire 44:08

That's good advice.

Daniel Moore 44:09

Um that's the mission statement that every couple needs to have. And it's something that's not thought of very often because honestly, in the daily grind of everything's we kind of leave God out of a lot of stuff, unfortunately, but it's true. That's just the way it works if we're not careful.

Kim McIntire 44:25

Well, I feel like Everett and I have established a good rhythm of prayer together and active listening. We have at least one hour. Well, maybe thirty minutes actually, if you average it, because like tonight we're not together because I'm not home. So I would say on average 30 minutes a day where we take a walk and during that time we don't have our phones and we're only listening and talking to each other. So we're either outside where it's nice in our neighborhood, or we are at the mall if it's raining or cold. So I would say four to five nights a week, we have that 30 minutes to an hour of we are just talking and listening to each other. And then we have a rhythm of we always pray together before bed at night. And if both of us are awake at the same time in the morning, we pray together in the morning. But that depends on his work schedule and what I have going on and when the kids are coming and all of that, you know. So, but the evening, the nighttime prayer is is an established rhythm of and you know that's communication too. Because when I hear Everett praying for me and he hears me praying for him, we're communicating with God, but we are also hearing one another like express needs and blessings for each other. Yeah, and I love that you talked about that as you you also talked about some some rhythms to establish about prayer and attending service together, speaking scriptures over your marriage, scriptures over your marriage, and there's so many things sections in there about all of that. There's so much in this.

Daniel Moore 46:02

There's a I mean, it's it's and there's so much more that's not there. It's just like it's amazing just how one subject can require so much to tackle every issue. It's amazing the messes we get ourselves into sometimes.

Kim McIntire 46:17

I feel like you got to the heart of the matter though, and especially the spiritual aspect of Jesus Christ being the center and the model for our marriage, the way he loves, the way he listens, the way he cares. And I cannot commend you enough. It's an excellent book. Um, before we wrap, I want you to tell people how they can get that. But um, I know you're currently working on a project that's going to be coming out July, August. So, and it's not about marriage. No. So tell us about that.

Isaiah Project Books And Next Steps

Kim McIntire 46:49

I'm excited about it.

Daniel Moore 46:50

So for over a year now, I've been working on a verse-by-verse study of the book of Isaiah.

Kim McIntire 46:55

Yes.

Daniel Moore 46:56

And if anybody follows my podcast, I'm actually going through that study right now on my connecting the gap side, because as you stated at the opener, I have a connecting the gap podcast, which is Bible study. Yes. And then we have Marriage Life and More, which is my wife and I. And uh so I'm I'm going through that study right now, but I will have it out in book form, hopefully June to July. I'm through the formatting process right at the moment. Uh and now this is chapters one through thirty-nine, by the way.

Kim McIntire 47:22

Right.

Daniel Moore 47:22

Uh 40 through 66 will have to come probably next year.

Kim McIntire 47:26

Yeah, part two.

Daniel Moore 47:27

Part two, yeah, because Isaiah is a humongous book. Um, but it's a it's a literal verse-by-verse walkthrough.

Kim McIntire 47:34

Yeah, and I would say, can we include your podcast links onto the the show this episode? So we will have the connecting the gap link and the marriage and sorry, marriage life and more um link as well, because you would I would highly recommend if you have not listened to those podcasts, please go to those podcasts. They are rich with resource, rich with truth, rich with encouragement. Um and I have listened to a portion of your Isaiah study. Um and I just feel like the book is going to be such a rich complement to the actual podcast um study that you're doing as well. Yeah. So I would just encourage people to get plugged into that. Um tell us about your podcast and ministry that's happening now and what you're headed into for the future.

Daniel Moore 48:28

Okay. Uh so right now, um on the marriage side, we're actually going through the first book, Marriage is a Mission.

Kim McIntire 48:35

Awesome.

Daniel Moore 48:35

Uh that's what Michelle and I are working through. So each chapter has been about two episodes, two 40-minute episodes, roughly. And so again, it's a lot more detailed than the book, even. And we didn't really if you get the book and read it, it's not technically the same as the podcast. Um, you're gonna notice that it's different material to an extent. It's the same material, but it's reworded and whatever. Uh, but we're going through that right now.

Kim McIntire 48:58

And it's just enriching the book.

Daniel Moore 49:00

Yes, it's enriching it and adding to it some more context and some more truths that were pulled out of. And of course, me and her, you know, going back and forth, sharing life experiences and just all different kinds of stuff.

Kim McIntire 49:10

It really makes the book more personal because it's really the book is a product of you and Michelle's marriage journey. I mean, it really is. It's so beautiful.

Daniel Moore 49:18

Yeah. So yeah, so we're doing that now, and then of course, doing the Isaiah study on connecting the gap side, you can go to our website, it's marriagelife.com or connectingthegap.net. Either of those addresses will get you to the same spot. And you'll see all of the links there. You'll we do premarital with Simbus, you'll see the link for that if anybody's interested in that locally. Uh there's just a lot of res all the book resources are there. So much.

Kim McIntire 49:44

You're really pouring out so much of what the Lord has poured into you, and it's a blessing, Daniel. It really is. How do we get your books?

Daniel Moore 49:51

Okay, so all the books are pretty much everywhere that you can get a book. If you go online, uh they're Walmart, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, they're on eBay, uh, of course, Amazon. Uh there is a six weeks or yeah, six session study guide that goes with marriage's admission. It's on Amazon only. Uh, but the rest of the books you can get on the paperback and all of those places. You can get a hardback version if you want of the three books on Amazon only. And then I have ebooks with Apple, Google, and Amazon. Okay. In all three areas. So they're all over the place. So there's not much.

Kim McIntire 50:26

Can you link that to the episode? Thank you. Thank you so much. I have so appreciated your time and all of the opportunity. Oh, you're welcome. It's a

Share Review And Final Blessing

Kim McIntire 50:36

joy. And I'm just going to encourage listeners, share this episode with people. Post it on your socials. We know marriages are under attack right now, and there is no time like now to be sharing tools with friends and family and loved ones, social circles, like ways to improve your marriage. And I can tell you, it will not be a waste of your time to get this book and read it and share it with someone, gift it to someone even. So we're gonna wrap this interview. Again, thanks, Daniel. No, thank you. Appreciate you so much. Thank you for taking your time to listen to our podcast. Please share the series. We believe that it has the power to change lives. Check out our website at it'stimetoriseup.org, and there you'll find our social media links. We would love to hear your feedback. Please rate us and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast. We pray God's grace and peace will be with you all in Jesus' name.