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You know, the Bible is full of stories about relationships, good relationships, bad relationships, romantic relationships, business relationships. It's pretty obvious that God created people to be in relationships with other people. Our relationships are supposed to be positive aspects in our lives full of love, encouragement, and understanding, but because of sin and the human condition, our relationships can be the cause of our deepest pains and sorrow instead of our greatest joys and triumphs. Well today on Family Talk, we're going to hear the conclusion of a recent conversation between our cohost, Dr. Tim Clinton and Pastor Michael Todd. There'll be discussing Pastor Michael's new book called, Relationship Goals.
Michael Todd is the lead pastor at Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You may recall the back in 2017, Pastor Michael preached the first sermon in a series that he called "Relationship Goals." Sometime after that first message, the video for "Relationship Goals" went viral and it has now been viewed by over 6 million people online. In 2020, Pastor Michael published a book by that same title, Relationship Goals, spelling out the principles that clearly delineate the differences between our own earthly goals for our relationships and God's goals for our relationships.
On yesterday's broadcast, Dr. Tim Clinton and Pastor Michael covered quite a bit of ground. If you didn't hear that program, by the way, you'll definitely want to go to DrJamesDobson.org and check it out there. Here now, though, is part two of their conversation.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Pastor Mike, I want to jump a little bit forward here-
Michael Todd: Let's go.
Dr. Tim Clinton: In the book you talk about single, being single, and the importance or the significance of it. I know in sports, we have a saying that says, trust the process.
Michael Todd: Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You talk about in your relationships, you want to look at it as a progression, not necessarily perfection. There's a process going on here. And it starts with the single piece, getting it right. Take us in there.
Michael Todd: Well, I believe that singleness is the most important part of your relationship, because the one thing that you will always be is a single person that is coming into relationship, in coming into unity with somebody else. And the problem that I see, Dr. Tim, is most people don't know who they are as a single person. So when somebody else tries to figure them out, they don't even know what to tell them. I do a part in the book called, "Before the Person", and I talk about all the things that God gave to Adam before he gave Eve. He gave Adam all of these things before a person so that when he gave Eve, he would not be looking for those things in Eve. We all have these God holes that only he can fill, and people try to put money in them. They try to put drugs in them.
They try to put success in them. They try to put family in them. But if you don't allow God to give you these things before a person, you will always look for them in a person. And I just believe singleness is that season of discovery that sets you up to be so grateful for that season and then delighted when God joined somebody else. And it helps you choose better because if you don't know you, or if you do know you, you can recognize somebody who doesn't know themselves. And that's one thing that helps you be able to make a better decision. It's not out of need, it's out of purposes aligning and seeing what God has for you to do together.
And so, I think singleness, I tell people all the time, singleness is the best season of your life. And I tell people just on a practical level, this is the most time you'll ever have to do anything you want to do in your life. As soon as you get in a relationship and you add kids, keep cutting it in half because you then have to sacrifice. If you want to learn a new skill, learn a new skill. if you want to travel, travel. This time is for you to discover who you are, who God's made you to be and all those giftings that he has called you to be able to place in this earth.
Dr. Tim Clinton: The season of singleness. It's so easy to get lost there. It's also easy to feel like you're less than because you don't "have someone", but boy, if you can get this thing straight, you begin to realize ultimately the intimacy, in other words, that oneness is healthy when I bring a healthy separateness, also.
Michael Todd: You have to, because if you don't, then you lose yourself. One of the sad truths, Dr. Tim, is I counsel people many times in marriage who got their identity from the spouse and the kids. And then when the kids leave and they're just left with that person, they had not developed their singleness at all for years, they didn't know what they like to read. They didn't know what movie...They lived their entire life for somebody else. And now they're at 48, 56, 62, trying to rediscover who God created them to be. And I say this, I don't think you ever stopped being single. I think you are in a covenant relationship, but God always wants to work on the single person. In my prayer time, God doesn't talk to me about my wife. He talks to me about me and what I need to change so that I can become a better person so that I can go and be a better husband. Do you understand what I'm saying?
And I really do believe that if we work on our singleness and get that rhythm of working on it, it gives to us and produces for the rest of our lives. I really do believe that your season of singleness is preparation for your calling, your purpose, your identity, and it allows you to be sure of what God's says. You could have extended time with no responsibilities to just find out who God's created you to be and in that, then it informs your relationships. There are people that you shouldn't be even entertaining because of what you know now, because of what you've seen in this season of singleness. And I believe everybody should embrace and enjoy their season of singleness because it is a good season and it's a God season.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Staying consistent with scripture, you press into that verse that says, hey, we're to love God first and then love others. It's not about, hey, getting it backwards because people often do. They look for the affirmation in the world around them and not their relationship with God.
Michael Todd: I really do believe that the scripture is very clear that there is a priority to what we are supposed to do. And it's difficult for many people to understand, how do I do this? But I really do believe that this is the key to winning in all relationships. If you love God right, you learn how to love yourself right. And if you read that scripture, you only can love others to the level that you love yourself. A lot of reason why many relationships don't go well is because people haven't learned the first connection of relationship that goes vertically, that then affects all of your horizontal relationships. And I believe that this is the reason why I had a burden to write this book and it's the reason why the message has been resonating and helping so many people of all ages, demographics, and backgrounds.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You had mentioned in the book, the issue of reset, that sometimes in our relationships, we do get lost. And when we get that knock, if you will, from above where God just says, Hey, whoa, stop. This isn't going right. You, you told a story of a woman named Diamond who was sexually abused, wound up going to college, got lost and then God did something. Do you remember that particular case?
Michael Todd: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I really do believe that in Diamond's case, in my case, in a lot of people's case right now, she had a season where she was in a habit of doing things that she felt like filled a God hole, and going through all of these situations and all of these different things, she said, you know what? I got to take a season off from dating, from being with people, from going down this path because she needed to break the cycle. And I don't know who's listening right now, but some of us are going down a path that we have decided, well, this is my course in life. And I believe we serve a God who can help you break cycles. And many times in breaking the cycles, whether it's generational, whether it's relational, you have to hit a reset. You have to say, you know what, I got to do something completely different.
This may mean in this season, I don't go out. This may mean in this season, I'm not on social media. This may mean in this season that I'm not watching my favorite television show because it feeds me something that keeps me in this habit. And just like Diamond, just like me, just like probably everybody listening and watching, we all have habits that the only way they're going to stop is if we starve them, if we kill the thing that continues to feed it. And that's the question that I like to ask more is what is feeding the thing that's killing you?
A lot of people go to things that bring them joy. We have friends that feed us and it ends up making us deal with comparison. We may need to hit a reset and get some new friends and not be comparing with them so much because it's feeding the thing that's secretly and silently killing our relationships. And I just encourage everybody out there. I have to do it often. I take sabbaticals all the time. I have a Sabbath every week and I really do believe this is the playbook of God, that he created everything in seven days, but he actually created it in six, but left the seventh in there because he said, I need y'all to have a day of reset, a day of rest, a day of being able to commune with me, stepping back from everything that everybody else is saying is important and allow me to work and refresh and rejuvenate. And that's what a reset really does in your relationships and in your life, it gives you perspective. And man, once you get God's perspective on something, it changes everything you do with people.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Mike, have you encountered people who said, "You know what, but I feel stuck. It's like, I can't give him up or I can't give her up." No doubt, you've spoken to people and as you begin to share about what healthy relationships are, all the sudden, you've got people responding back and saying, "Oh, I need to get out of this relationship. I know this is toxic. This is not okay. And I can see where I've gotten lost in it." You know, in a sense, my whole perspective on addiction, why people get stuck and overwhelmed is because we're made for relationship and when we put a surrogate lover in there, instead of our relationship with God or those closest to it, it becomes a consuming fire that we can't let go.
Michael Todd: I was literally just about to say the same thing, Dr. Tim, is that in every person born into this world, you have an innate desire to be in connection with somebody else because you were the only thing that was formed in the image of God. That is God's nature, so it is our nature. No matter if you don't believe in Him, no matter if you had a bad experience, no matter if you're an atheist, on the inside of you, you want to be in relationship. And so, many people that deal with toxic relationships, the truth of the matter is, is the toxicity ends up over time eroding what they actually desire and what they actually love. And so, my approach to helping people is I just ask them, "Is this what you really want? Do you really want to be fearful? Do you really want to have to work for somebody to love?
Do you really want to continue to have to perform to be accepted?" And nobody wants to do that. And I try to walk them to their own conclusions and let them know there is one who has cared so much for you and loves you so much that he paid an ultimate sacrifice. Even before you knew about him, he sacrificed for you. And I tell them about the love of God and the son who went to the cross and sacrificed. And I said, "This love, you didn't earn it. You don't deserve it, but it is yours and all you have to do is receive it."
And once people start seeing that there's a better option, then they start to feel like I deserve that. I want that. I need that. And then once they aim at that relationship goals, you quickly see, hold on, I deserve more than that. Hold on, I'm made right with Christ, not with God, not because of my performance, but because of my position. Hold on, I don't need to be treated like that. And it helps people to start to aim. So it is my job, my honor, my joy to help people see God and then it helps them get right perspective on every other relationship.
Dr. Tim Clinton: This is some strong stuff right here, I'm telling you. It's amazing. Let's go to dating. You take on dating in the book. They say apart from your relationship with God in Christ, who you say I do to.
Michael Todd: Oh.
Dr. Tim Clinton: There it is.
Michael Todd: It's a big deal.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's a big deal, but we have a mess. Marriage is in trouble. A significant amount of today's marriages are going to wind up in divorce. If you count people who separate, but don't divorce, but never come back to the marriage, it's even going higher.
Michael Todd: Wow.
Dr. Tim Clinton: So as we look at dating, you talk about dating in a different way. It's not a destination.
Michael Todd: No it's transportation. I think about when I get ... I travel a lot. And so before COVID I traveled a whole, whole bunch. And one of the things, when I would go through airports is there would be a tram that would take me from terminal A to terminal B and my kids really liked those trams and they wanted to stay on them. But what I had to explain to my children is that those trams weren't a destination. Our destination was a beach for a family vacation, but those were transportation to take us to our next destination. And that's what dating and courting is supposed to be. It's not supposed to be a destination. I'm not supposed to date you for 15 years and do all this stuff. It's supposed to be transportation, a vehicle to let me see, "hey, do I want to get off and spend the rest of my life with you or I'm going to let you get off and I'm going to keep going to the next terminal."
And I just believe in today's day and age, a lot of people are camping out where they should be passing through. And I really do believe that when you start doing relationship God's way, that's something that you see and it allows you to be able to get to the end goal of being in relationship with somebody, committed in covenant, sacrificing, loving, and it's so much more fulfilling to be in a relationship with somebody that you know, who got off the train with you and said, we want to land here. We want to build something here. And we want to become something that is the picture of God on the earth.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yet it seems like, Pastor Mike, that the majority of people are caught up in this recreational dating thing. I'm just going to date as many people as I want to, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to do whatever I want. And they don't realize the imprint that they're laying down, even in their own soul as a part of this process.
Michael Todd: The thing that you got to understand is anybody that touches you, I equate it to somebody with paint on their hands. If they touch you, it leaves a mark. Like if you get in relationship with anybody, when they put their hands on you, they leave an imprint. Even if you do not stay with that person, the next person you come in contact with or come in relationship with, they are experiencing you with somebody else on them. And whether that's good, whether that's bad, whether that's anxious, whether that's angry and it even increases when you start talking about sex and soul ties and the connection that God made for that act to connect somebody on three levels, to connect them spiritually, emotionally, and physically, you can't rip away from that and not have a transfer of that person.
You thought it was a Netflix and chill or a one-night stand, or it was just a wild weekend, but what you don't know is now you are carrying a piece of that person's spirit with you everywhere you go. And that's why I think that how we do singleness is important. How we date is important, how we marry is important and how we do community in marriage is so important, that helps you reach your relationship goals.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You talk about intentional friendship-
Michael Todd: Yes, sir.
Dr. Tim Clinton: As a part of dating. I think that was really significant to me as I went through it. Share with our listeners what you mean by being focused in that way.
Michael Todd: Well, I think one of the things that's a problem in today's age, especially with social media, if you say you're dating somebody and you go 'Facebook Official', it's almost like people throw a wedding. It's like, "They're together. They're going to be together forever. I can see your kids." And really, that's dangerous because you're in a process of discovering somebody. The reason why department stores have dressing rooms is so you could try it on and see if it works. Like, oh yeah, that doesn't look good. I thought it would look good, but it doesn't look good.
And I think intentional friendship is a period of time that me and my wife developed when we were in youth ministry, a process for people to be in that has accountability, that has the books and things that they read together and have on-ramps and off-ramps so that it doesn't have to be detrimental and devastating when you break up, if you find out that that's not the right person. And we have found tremendous success at helping people be able to say, all right, let's not date. I know you want to be 'Facebook Official' and tell everybody, but let's do 90 days of intentional friendship. Let's do check-ins every couple of weeks. Let's read this book together so we don't get distracted and start wanting to touch each other and do all these other things because we have nothing to focus on. Let's focus on growing together. And we have seen people get married out of it. We have seen people say that changed the way that I approach every relationship. And so we do believe that that is going to help tons of people. And it has helped tons of people win in relationships.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I've got two more questions while I've got you that I've got to get through. In the book, you talk about surrendering your sexuality. I think that comes back to what we were talking about on dating because this soul tie thing becomes so powerful and people don't get it. They don't understand what's happening here in this process. But what do you mean by surrendering your sexuality to God?
Michael Todd: I tell people all the time, I said for some reason we think anything that we deal with, especially if it leans to our lower nature and the darker side that somehow God is scared of it. God created our sexuality. I do a message called "God Invented Sex." Like we have given that to the world like it's some nasty dark thing. No, it was just perverted. God created it. God meant for it to be good. God put it in a container and the container was marriage. And a lot of people, the same way water in the right container can be able to generate power enough to be able to power Las Vegas, that same water outside of a container can flood Houston and cause devastation to so many people.
When you surrender your sexuality, what you do is you submit to the container that God has placed your sexuality in and say, "Yeah, I have urges. Yeah, I have these feelings. Yeah, I have this, but I'm going to rely on the power of the spirit to empower me to live a life that allows me to see fruit." And I tell people this, that scripture that says this, "The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in us." One day when I was dealing with the cycle and the habit of pornography because I dealt with it for 10 years and I share very transparently in my book about it. When I was dealing with that, the Holy Spirit told me, he said, "Michael, if I can raise a dead body, what makes you think I can't help you manage your living one?"
Dr. Tim Clinton: Amen.
Michael Todd: And that revelation right here changed everything in my life, to know that I could have power, to be able to defeat the lies and the schemes of our adversary.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What I love too is you took the push in modern day society to have safe sex and you turned it this way, "sacred, anointed, faithful, and exclusive."
Michael Todd: Yes, sir.
Dr. Tim Clinton: The covenant bond of marriage. Let's close this way. Solomon wrote these words, "This is my lover and my friend."
Michael Todd: Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Ultimately crazy in love with the love of your life. The one you say I do to. Give us your closing thoughts, Pastor Mike, on what it means to be in that kind of a relationship.
Michael Todd: Every relationship that you will ever have is just a copy of the relationship that you have with the Creator. When you learn how to love Him, when you learn how much He loves you, when you learn how to sacrifice and make time to spend in His presence. And when you realize how much He wants to give to you, it changes the way you view everything else. He even gives us a picture between Him and the church. He said, this is my bride, your wife. I want you to love her as I love the church. What I'm telling you is if you get your number one relationship goal right which is God, then your romantic relationship, your business relationships, your relationships with your children, your friendships, they all have the opportunity to win. I want you, I want you to know that God wants you to win in relationships.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Pastor Michael Todd, listen, what a delight to have you. On behalf of Dr. James Dobson, his wife, Shirley, their family, the entire Family Talk team, we salute you and congratulate you on your book, Relationship Goals: How to Win at Dating, Marriage, and Sex. Thank you for joining us.
Michael Todd: Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Tim.
Roger Marsh: You're listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. And that was the conclusion of Dr. Tim Clinton's fascinating discussion with Pastor Michael Todd of Transformation Church. The topic, relationship goals. We hope that it opened your eyes to some aspects of what a healthy relationship really looks like that maybe you've never considered before.
Let me give you some encouragement. Do you feel like you just are bad at relationships? I mean, have you had more false starts than you can count with friendships or romance? Well, I want to remind you that God, our Father, created us for good relationships and they are in fact possible. Like Pastor Mike said, if God can raise the dead, what makes us think he can't heal our broken areas and help us have good, healthy relationships? And I'm not saying it doesn't take work, but you are not a lost cause, you can learn how to do relationships well and reading Pastor Michael's book, Relationship Goals might just be a good first step.
You can find information about how to get that book, you can also learn more about the ministry of Pastor Michael Todd and Transformation Church when you visit our broadcast page at DrJamesDobson.org. That web address is DrJamesDobson.org/broadcast. And of course, you can always feel free to call us anytime day or night. We are here to answer your questions about the James Dobson Family Institute and Family Talk. We'll also be happy to pray with you if need be. Our number is 877-732-6825. Again, that number is 877-732-6825. Thanks again for listening to Family Talk today, we are so blessed to have so many loyal supporters, just like you, who tune in. For Dr. and Mrs. Dobson and the entire team here at the JDFI, I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks for listening and have a wonderful day.
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