Episode 1431: Interview with Jeeva Sam About Why There Are NO Marriage Problems

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1431 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Jeeva Sam: I'm Jeeva Sam. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to build your marriage on a solid foundation is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

[00:00:32] the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.

[00:00:45] I think the impact that, uh, that, that I aim to see, uh, whether it's with the marriage mentorship, whether in my, in my years as a pastor, uh, or in mentoring, uh, you know, people in the business realm is transformation. That that's a [00:01:00] transformation that they experienced actually. was not just for them, but it was the transformation that they could then transmit.

[00:01:10] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence So that you can impact the world.

[00:01:40] In today's podcast episode, I interview Jeeva Sam. I asked Jeeva about how he got called from pastor to marriage and entrepreneur coach. I also asked Jeeva why he sees no real marriage problems. And Jeeva also shares with you how he sees a strong connection between a successful [00:02:00] marriage and successful leadership.

[00:02:02] I've got a new book coming out coming soon. called Inspired Living. Assembling the puzzle of your call by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about it and sign up for getting more information over at InspiredStewardship. com Inspired Living. That's InspiredStewardship.

[00:02:23] com Inspired Living. Pastor Jeeva and his wife Seljina, Sam, are marriage mentors and the number one international best selling authors of The Unbreakable Marriage, where they share details of the process they use to guarantee breakthrough for married couples facing breakdown, often in as little as 10 weeks.

[00:02:46] Jeeva served as a pastor for over 35 years, and the Sams celebrated their 40th anniversary of their arranged marriage in August of 2023. They are parents of three married children and grandparents of an adorable baby boy and [00:03:00] they live in the Nigeria region of Canada. Welcome to the show, Jeeva!

[00:03:04] Jeeva Sam: Great to be with you, Scott.

[00:03:06] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I'm happy to have you here today. So I shared a little bit about your intro in the intro about your book, The Unbreakable Marriage, and some of the other work that you and your wife do around marriage. And I know from having spoken with you and looked at your book read through things that you've been doing, that there's more to the story than that.

[00:03:28] I always tell people, I think intros are like Instagram photos, right? We you just get that little snapshot and it's always framed perfectly. So can you share with Alistair a little bit more, what has brought you to the point in your life where now you have this focus on marriage and trying to help folks overcome, and I'm going to put it in air quotes, marriage problems and move forward in the, in their lives.

[00:03:54] Jeeva Sam: Okay, so I'll give you the LinkedIn version then, rather than the Insta.

[00:03:58] Scott Maderer: That'll work. [00:04:00] Let's not go to Facebook though, I don't know if we have that much time.

[00:04:06] Jeeva Sam: So really, many of the things that I'm doing right now, I never ever imagined I would do. So I basically signed up to be a pastor. My dad was a pastor. My grandfather was a pastor. I think the disease runs in the family. And so it became a very natural thing for me to also be a pastor. I had my call and had to say yes to God on my own.

[00:04:27] But that's basically what I wanted to do. And along the way God started doing some things with me. And and one of the things that that he basically started highlighting was married couples. And actually my wife Solojna really got the memo before I did. Because we were on a show.

[00:04:46] And that

[00:04:46] Scott Maderer: happens sometimes. My wife gets the memo before I do sometimes too.

[00:04:53] Jeeva Sam: So we were invited to be on a on a show from, by a Canadian Christian. television [00:05:00] network and they said, hey, we want to do this 40 day love dare from the fireproof movie with our audience but we just don't want to promote the process itself.

[00:05:09] We actually want to liven it up by inviting three couples to actually do the 40 day love dare and do a vlog at the end of every day. Are you up for it? And so I thought it was a really exciting way to do it because I'd watched the movie and had some idea of what it was about. So as we were going through it, people who are watching the show began to look at us as more than just a couple who was doing the 40 day love there because we started getting mail.

[00:05:38] I'm going through this with my husband. My wife isn't doing this that how can I change? What can I do type of thing? And Slogana says to me, you know what? I think God's calling us to marriage ministry. And I said maybe but let's not you know, put on the shoes of.

[00:05:56] marriage counselors or anything like that because we're not. We'll just tell these [00:06:00] folks we'll pray for them, which we're sincere about doing, but let's just stop there. I thought that would end it, but once we got past the show and the 40 days and so on we would go to conferences we would go even sometimes even shopping or the churches and people would stop us and say, Hey, aren't you the couple that was in the 40 day love day?

[00:06:22] Yes, that's us. Okay. And so it's okay. So then I saying, you know what? I think that's God's reminder that we need to do something. And I said, slow down. The last thing we want to do is to work with couples who are in distress because trust me, they'll suck the life out of you. So let's not go there.

[00:06:40] And so she left me alone. Like a good Indian waifu, and then, we were going along and then God started doing something else in my life. He started bringing to me people who are in business people who are high achievers in the sales world and startups and so on.[00:07:00]

[00:07:00] And they started asking me if I would come alongside them, like one even said, can you become a consultant? I'll put you on my payroll because I need somebody to provide me with some input that comes from God. not just from from my own brain or consultants and so on. And and I, somebody had given me a prophetic word about that God's going to use you this way.

[00:07:22] I could never see myself doing it. And so there's a point at which these things, these two stories converge. Because when I started working with these guys, They were doing really well, just applying very simple biblical principles that they weren't aware of, because some of them had grown up Catholic, so they didn't really know the Bible.

[00:07:40] And but it seemed like after a while, they were all hitting this wall or ceiling, and I'm really puzzled because they're doing the right things. And they should be really going from glory to glory and strength to strength, but it's not happening. So one day in my quiet time, I'm just asking the Lord, what's going on?

[00:07:58] And I just heard him say very clearly, [00:08:00] ask each and every one of them about their marriage. And when I asked them about the marriage, Every one of them admitted that they had stress. They were not on the same page. There were some things that had happened and they're not forgiving each other for some things and so on.

[00:08:16] So at that point, a light bulb went on that maybe I do need to take this. this call to marriage seriously. Again, I just dragged my feet. I didn't do it right away until a few months later. I started getting some 911 calls from a number of these guys all at the same time and said, listen, you guys have some marriage experiences.

[00:08:35] You have a good marriage as far as we can tell. And you need to help us. So at that point I said, okay, Holy Spirit, I think I'm I think you got me painted into a corner. I give up I give in and I'll do this. And so that's how the whole journey began with this intersection of the business world the church world, and especially relationships and marriage.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Scott Maderer: So a couple of things that, that I wanted to follow up on and ask about you, at the beginning, you said you had that call to being a pastor and you stood up the other work you're doing You know, almost as something different. Do you see the work you're doing as an extension of the pastoral work you're doing?

[00:09:20] Or is something really different than what you used to do?

[00:09:25] Jeeva Sam: The, one of the primary images that the Bible uses for a pastor is that of a shepherd. And so in a way, like I, I'm in that shepherding role even though I'm not in a congregational setting, I think once you have that pastoral anointing, if you will, or calling on you, then you continue with it like this, but you often joke that like pastors never retire.

[00:09:49] You just continue pastoring somebody else in a different setting as you go along. And yeah. And also, I got to tell you, Scott, that my understanding of what it means to [00:10:00] be a pastor actually changed along the way, because in the beginning, it was all about the church setting. That's where I primarily saw myself being a pastor.

[00:10:10] And along the way I began to learn some insights like people like Ed Salvosos Influence Oz Hillman some of these people who started saying, no, your work is your calling. And also some of the apostolic leaders saying, listen, your primary purpose as a pastor, if you take the fivefold ministry seriously, is to actually equip other people to also be pastors.

[00:10:34] It's not just you doing all the pastoring. And so at that point, I started to think a little bit more about, you know what, I need to take what our people are doing outside of the church setting more seriously. and ask how I could come alongside them. Now, the funny part was when I brought that up with some of the people that I thought would be open to it, they had made a very clear division between their church life and their work life.

[00:10:59] [00:11:00] And so it's what, why would my pastor take an interest in what I'm doing at work? He should be talking to me more about what I'm doing as a deacon in or the ministry that's happening there that I'm doing. And so it, I think it was a bit of a learning curve for people and for me.

[00:11:15] And then eventually when I finally got this whole revelation about, no, my job is not to just be a pastor, but to actually equip others. to also move in that pastoral calling. For example, like one of the people that I started to connect with was the CEO of a major corporation in our area. And when he and I would sit down and have chats I still was struck by this comment he made one day.

[00:11:43] He said, Pastor, when you're in my position, most of our problems are not related to production or technology. Most of our problems are people problems.

[00:11:54] Scott Maderer: Yep.

[00:11:55] Jeeva Sam: And he said, I spend most of my time helping maintain the peace between my [00:12:00] managers

[00:12:00] Or the management and the guys on the front line and so on.

[00:12:04] And so I began to get a greater appreciation of how this is really. an extension of being a pastor. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't even say extension. It's actually included in being a pastor. The only thing is I didn't see it right off the bat when I came out of seminary because I was just focusing on being a prince of the pulpit and like preaching, like that was really the main thing.

[00:12:27] And then doing the pastoral care. That's, that was what I focused on,

[00:12:32] Scott Maderer: not

[00:12:32] Jeeva Sam: realizing that God was calling me to step out of the church. Zone, the four walls, if you will and be out in the world where people would.

[00:12:40] Scott Maderer: And I think a lot of times, so in, I'm a Methodist denomination is the denomination I belong to.

[00:12:47] And so we actually have within the Methodist under ordination, there are elders who are called to the church life. And then there are what we call deacons, which are called to [00:13:00] bridge between church and the world. So a lot of times the deacons are serving out in a some sort of extension ministries or other, they may even not serve in any sort of formal ministry, but they serve out in a a nonprofit or a hospital or so they're not chaplains.

[00:13:17] We have those two but they're in that more of an extension or worldly ministry. And it's actually something I love about the Methodists. denomination and the way they do it in that they recognize, no, there are pastors that are called to the church. Yeah. But there are also pastors that are Charles charged with pastoring out of the church in a way and into the world.

[00:13:40] And I think that's something that's I think you're right. I think we've lost track of that some in some of the way we set up church to be and for the lay people, Like you said, a lot of us wall off and it's Sunday and maybe Wednesday night or once or twice a week and that's it.

[00:13:56] Yeah, that's the church time. Everything else is time and [00:14:00] we wall it off in our own heads as well. Yeah. So when you go back to the beginning and you you shared that you were called as a pastor. Your father was a pastor, grandfather was a pastor. Talk a little bit about. How did your faith journey evolve as you both before you were called to ministry, as you were called to ministry, and then as you've been called to this new ministry that you're doing?

[00:14:25] Jeeva Sam: Yeah. I grew up in a traditional denomination. As a matter of fact, it was called the Church of South India where the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Anglican churches came together. Okay. and formed this denomination. And so in, in a sense, there was some slight evangelical edge to it mainly because of the Methodists being there.

[00:14:51] I was going to say,

[00:14:51] Scott Maderer: if the Methodists showed up, there's some of that. Yep. Yeah.

[00:14:54] Jeeva Sam: It's a little bit of fire still left, but for the most part, it was the church was the formality. [00:15:00] And but because of the slight evangelical edge we often had a visiting evangelist my dad would have them over at the church and then quite often they would end up staying with us because we have some extra space in the house and the man's.

[00:15:15] And so one of them was connected with a ministry that I believe is known all over the world called Youth for Christ at that time. I think they have a different name right now, but Youth for Christ was the main label. And so one day he and I were just sitting down having a conversation and he said, Hey Jeeva, by the way, have you given your life to the Lord?

[00:15:36] And I said not really and he said would you like to do that? Invite Jesus to be the Lord of your life? And I said, yeah, sure. And and I'm fairly young, I'm only like seven years old. And I say the prayer of salvation and and really in some ways I wouldn't say there was a dramatic change after that, but a few years down the road.

[00:15:59] [00:16:00] Again, I'm still fairly young. I had a conversation with my dad. And so my dad basically says, Hey what do you see yourself doing with the rest of your life? And at that point I said, Dad I want to be a pastor like you. And so he's okay that's good. And my grandfather was over here in the conversation and he was not totally sure that was the right path to take mainly because he'd experienced.

[00:16:27] Yeah. All the ups and downs of pastoring and but regardless they encouraged me. And I think I am a somewhere between 10 and 12. There was a number of us young people, many of them are older than me. I still remember being called to the front of the church.

[00:16:46] And and and we all knelt down, they laid hands on us and prayed that we would live up to our pastoral calling. And so in some ways that's all I knew and and move towards it. So my [00:17:00] faith journey obviously keeps on growing and maturing from that Sunday school kind of faith we're just knowing who Jesus is to really getting to know Him.

[00:17:12] And of course in the meantime, you're running into some life issues you're facing the deaths of family members. And so every time something like that happens your faith gets a little bit challenged if not always tested. I never went through a phase where I actually completely went away from the faith but there were definitely lukewarm moments.

[00:17:34] Yeah. And then our family moved to Canada. So I was 18 years old. So I'm in a university environment. I'm right in one of the university residences. I won't say much about the residence, except our residence was nicknamed the zoo.

[00:17:49] Scott Maderer: And so

[00:17:52] Might get a little bit of a picture. Got it.

[00:17:57] Jeeva Sam: So I bought into a lot of [00:18:00] the ways of the world there, and Some of the things I didn't get into with the other guys were if really doing was dope and so on. In those days it was all prohibited. And so it had to be done hush.

[00:18:15] So there was a time when I would say I was not totally walking out my faith

[00:18:19] Even in the context of being in residence. But then as you get closer to the end of university and even at that time, I'd already pretty well made up my mind. That yeah, God had this call to ministry, so I need to go in there and so that's when I really began to study the Bible more develop more of a prayer life and and also, of course, then you go to seminary you're immersed in that.

[00:18:48] Another good thing about, I went to a denominational seminary. Actually, there's probably quite a bit of similarity between the Methodist Church and the United Church of Canada,

[00:18:59] Scott Maderer: [00:19:00] at least

[00:19:00] Jeeva Sam: at that time. And so there are a lot of, some of the professors would openly challenge us. You know on some of our beliefs and just to force us to think through them and yeah and have an Almost rebuild your faith on a more solid foundation And so I went through that time of shaking and then you're also getting exposed to all sorts of theologies That you never heard in the congregational setting Like liberation theology, for example was really coming into prominence at that point feminist theology And so I had exposure to all of these but my evangelical roots always would win out.

[00:19:37] And so I was open minded to listen to everybody, but I did not embrace everything as part of my theology. And so of course eventually it comes to, come to a place where faith without works is dead. So how do you express your faith? In, in what you do, whether it's in the context of the church or outside the church.

[00:19:59] And so I began [00:20:00] to explore then, of course, as I mentioned a while ago, when I had that kind of revelation and awakening then I began to focus more on how do you bring your faith to bear when you're outside of the parameters of the church? Not necessarily the perimeter, but the parameters of the church.

[00:20:15] And what does that mean? What is that all about? And so one of the things I found out was as I started engaging more with people who are either not Christian or people who are nominal Christian who are not afraid to ask the tough questions. Then that actually ended up deepening my faith even more.

[00:20:37] Scott Maderer: Yeah. Sometimes when, if you hang around people that all believe the same thing that you do, then you don't have to examine those beliefs. But when you get out into the place where. Maybe somebody believes a little differently. Now you have to at least examine your beliefs. Doesn't mean you'll change them, but at least causes you to examine them again.

[00:20:55] So when you think about the work that you do now with the marriage [00:21:00] mentorship and and you talked about a lot of it came to you through the work you were doing with entrepreneurs and leaders and CEOs and those sorts of folks, what do you see as the connection between a successful marriage and success?

[00:21:17] In the other forms of your life and vice versa what's the feedback connection between those two things?

[00:21:24] Jeeva Sam: Yeah. So it's one of the ironic things, Scott, that these days we hear a lot of talk about mental health

[00:21:32] And how mental health affects your productivity. And companies are very aware and making available to their employees ways to relieve their stress, to address any anxiety they may have, to prevent them from sinking deeper to depression. And in some ways there are very tangible, visible signs and symbols when somebody is having some challenges with their [00:22:00] mental health.

[00:22:00] Now what I believe is equally serious is relational stress. The only thing is relational stress doesn't show up in quite the same way. And but what I found from working with couples, I was working with some of these high achieving people, mostly men actually, is that their relational stress does indeed take a toll on where they are going in terms of their business.

[00:22:25] Because even though it is not maybe in their face quite as much, It's inside of them. And so on the one hand so for example, what the way that some of them cope with it is they throw themselves heart and soul into their work, into their business. And spend, try to spend very little time at home.

[00:22:48] They become workaholics. And sometimes the workaholism then leads into other form of. Addictions as well. Other wells, , other isms. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And really, [00:23:00] so these are all really outworking sub relational for us. And unfortunately like sometimes like we, we live in a time when when in, in many cases husband and wife each have their own.

[00:23:12] Career paths or have their own businesses, or even if one is home their hands are full as well if they have children and so on. And so they get into these patterns of not making enough time for each other,

[00:23:27] Scott Maderer: of

[00:23:27] Jeeva Sam: not listening to each other enough. helping each other cope and even go, I would say, go beyond hope and even heal from some of the wounds.

[00:23:36] And so when that happens it actually affects for example, some of the CEOs startup guys that I work with. One of the things that I find that happens to them is their, the clarity of their thinking and their focus is not quite as good as it ought to be. It's clouded, I would say more than anything else.

[00:23:58] And of course, on the one hand you look at [00:24:00] the bottom line, they're doing great but if you talk to them personally, and they become transparent with you, you realize they're paying a heavy price for it. And relational stress if you take, once you take care of relational stress, and there's total unity, peace and harmony in the home, it just makes a tremendous difference.

[00:24:21] Thanks. To the way in which you run your company, the way in which you treat your employees and even have an empathy for others when they're going through stuff. For example like one of the things that I've sometimes seen happen is when relational stress is not addressed.

[00:24:37] Among the workforce, especially at the management level, I think it seems to be a little bit more prevalent among managers because they have a fair bit of stress that is work related on top of that. You throw some racial stress. They will grit their teeth and go through it because they have to, because there are quarters to be met.

[00:24:56] deadlines that need to be honored and so on. And so they [00:25:00] won't take time away or they won't even come to the boss and say I'm having some trouble at home then all of a sudden, one day it's you know what, I gotta be, I gotta take the next three weeks off. Like my wife and I, my husband and I were having a really difficult time in our marriage.

[00:25:13] And now all of a sudden the boss is caught off guard. It's no, I can't lose you for three weeks. You can't do that to me.

[00:25:19] Scott Maderer: Well,

[00:25:20] Jeeva Sam: see, that's the way relational stress impacts what somebody does in their workplace and especially in leadership. And so the, again like even though I was not in the business world, I had the exact same thing happen to me in the church realm,

[00:25:36] Scott Maderer: you

[00:25:36] Jeeva Sam: know, because at a certain level, you're, I'm a pastor, but it's also your career.

[00:25:42] And so you get so focused on growing your church and maintaining certain levels and so on that my marriage, my wife was being neglected. And finally, actually we have a committee in the United Church system and I had one at that time called the Ministry [00:26:00] and Personnel Committee.

[00:26:01] And a member of the committee called up Slojana and said, Hey, can I come and have coffee with you? And she said like, how was your marriage? And so I said, I hardly see Jeeva he's always at the church doing meetings, or he's out visiting people. And so she, so that, that lady came to me and said, listen you, I you, here's what she said to me, which was very interesting because she read my, the psychology of my mind immediately.

[00:26:28] She said, you must not feel guilty about taking time off. From church work just to be with your family and especially Sologena and then she hit the nail right on the head because it was guilt

[00:26:39] That I was not doing enough for the Lord or not doing my job properly. That was preventing me from doing that.

[00:26:46] And once they gave me that permission, and then I gave myself permission to do that. There was a like a radical shift and things at the church still prospered even though I was not spending quite as much time especially away [00:27:00] the evenings and so on when I should have been home with the family,

[00:27:02] Scott Maderer: right?

[00:27:02] And back to something that you said earlier. I think that's also something that helps pastors. change their focus from, I have to do it all, to, oh wait, no, part of my job is to raise up other leaders so that they can do some of it. Because I, I think a lot of pastors, and again, don't get me wrong, I think this is often forced upon them by the the membership but it's that, oh pastor will do it.

[00:27:31] Oh, pastor will do it. I've literally heard people say that and I jump on it because I'm like no you can't give another job to pastor. That's not the way to get something done. Let's if you want it done, let's figure out who's going to do it, but don't just say the pastor is going to do it, but it helps change the focus of the church from Oh, the pastor does it all to what are we as a church family doing together?

[00:27:57] How, who are the other leaders and what are they taking on? [00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Jeeva Sam: Yeah. So something really good came out of this whole discussion, not immediately, but a couple of years down the road. I got this vision for developing something called a pastoral care network. And so what we did, we divided, I think we had maybe 240 families, something like that at that time in the church.

[00:28:17] And I'm the only person on staff. And so we divided the congregation into groups of I think that you see the 10 or 12. And interestingly enough, we recruited shepherds who would oversee each of those groups. And they would contact them once a month and say, how are things going? Any updates that we need to know about?

[00:28:37] And then they would funnel that information to me.

[00:28:40] Scott Maderer: And

[00:28:40] Jeeva Sam: so now I make sure that when they gave something that was urgent, that needed to be talked about right away, or I had to go make a visit or whatever. So I became very targeted. in what I did, which also made me way more effective in pastoral care rather than like shotgunning all over the place.

[00:28:58] It was very, [00:29:00] so yeah. So out of that whole issue really that's exactly what ended up happening was equipping others to be also pastoral

[00:29:09] Within the congregational setting, took a lot of pressure off me. Of course, some people thought I was offloading. Yeah.

[00:29:16] Scott Maderer: There's also so many that that I always love it in churches where it's okay, we want a pastor who's out in the community a lot.

[00:29:25] And also in the office from eight to four every single day. And it's wait, what? One person cannot do both of those things. And yet that's that kind of dichotomy that we set ourselves. our pastor's up for and bringing that back to the leadership and in the corporate world or out in the a CEO or a leader or somebody like that.

[00:29:48] I think the same thing happens there for them. You mentioned, it helps them become more empathetic of other folks. I I've had leaders that [00:30:00] would say things like oh, this emotional intelligence stuff and paying attention to people that's all touchy feeling stuff.

[00:30:05] We don't we don't talk about that here, right? We don't talk about, nobody should talk about their home life. And it's what do you really think people like walk in the office and as they're swiping their badge, they're dropping all of that stuff off in a bucket and they're picking it back up with guess what?

[00:30:21] The visa bill's overdue. the visa bills overdue while they're at work too wifing them how to fight. They still had a fight it doesn't it doesn't matter. So it's, I think as leaders, it helps us too. If we navigate through our own recognition that, Hey, this is affecting us, it makes it easier to recognize, Oh, wait a minute.

[00:30:45] This is affecting everybody. My, my employees are affected by this by my customers are affected by this even and things. Have you seen that as well?

[00:30:56] Jeeva Sam: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's [00:31:00] another way to get at this is to say, okay, we are spirit beings with a soul in the body.

[00:31:06] And so the spirit part, most of us take good care of by maintaining a connection with the Lord whether it's through prayer or meditation any disciplines that we may practice and so on. And of course then there's the physical side of things. What we often.

[00:31:24] Fail to recognize is the tremendous power that the soul plays. And the soul is the collective name we give to the mind, will and emotions. And so emotional, yeah, like you did mention the emotional health and so on is actually taken care of. You're getting more attention to it now.

[00:31:43] But really like your your mind what is your experiences of the past. memories from your childhood, for example, that are still producing hurt that have not been totally healed. [00:32:00] And when you put those memories in your mind, with the emotions that you may have suppressed, or sometimes may have been forced, to suppress, or on the other hand, you may have expressed them explosively, and now you're a little bit careful about it.

[00:32:16] All those two will actually affect your will, your determination to make the right decisions to move forward or to back off or to walk out, like all these things. Because of what happens in the rest of the soul realm. And so that's why we cannot ignore all that happens to us.

[00:32:38] And I actually I would say actually, this is one of the founding principles in our marriage mentorship is that we're not, as you hinted earlier on, we, we do not attack marriage problems. We look at the people in the marriage. and see what problems have you brought into the marriage that are still lingering.

[00:32:58] And once we take care of them, [00:33:00] then your marriage is also going to get healed. And I would say something similar is at work whether you're in a, in an office setting, whether it's your own business, where whatever you experience whoever has shaped you, whoever has shaped you to be who you are right now you have to take that very seriously and see, is there, what is there that is dysfunctional?

[00:33:21] What are some beliefs that I've grown up with that actually are not true? I swallowed a few lies along the way because of my hurt. So now when you examine them, you repent of them, you replace them with truth. Now everything changes.

[00:33:38] Scott Maderer: So when you're working with somebody who a couple that is struggling in these kinds of areas what are some of the you just mentioned kind of one of them is recognizing that, no, it's not a marriage problem.

[00:33:50] It's two people, you've brought in things. Let's talk about what you brought in. What are some of the other areas or frameworks that you [00:34:00] use as you work with folks in, in these relationships.

[00:34:05] Jeeva Sam: So Scott, one of the great revelations that the Holy Spirit gave us when we launched our marriage mentorship is that we need to pay attention to the atmosphere in which people live out their lives.

[00:34:17] The, probably the best analogy I can use is like a greenhouse the plants will thrive in a greenhouse where all the conditions are conducive for growth. If you pipe in some industrial waste, some smoke from a neighboring smelter then that the you can have the best looking plants to start off with, and you can pour all the fertilizer and supply them with all the water that they need, but the growth will be stunted because the atmosphere basically militates against them continuing to grow.

[00:34:51] And so the first thing that we teach couples in a marriage mentorship to do is to actually cultivate an [00:35:00] atmosphere where the Holy Spirit is welcome to move, where any toxins that, that may have crept in there, and most of the time we allow toxins to come in, not even realizing that we're doing it.

[00:35:14] Scott Maderer: And

[00:35:14] Jeeva Sam: So in the beginning, we don't begin with introspection. We begin by, by, by basically pouring into the atmosphere some something. So for example one of the disciplines that we teach is gratitude.

[00:35:31] Gratitude is a powerful way in which you can completely shift the atmosphere in your home, in your marriage because you're focusing on what is, what God is doing and what God has done, not on what is not happening, which is, you know what, where our minds.

[00:35:48] often will tend to dwell. And even some simple habits like praying together as a couple, which, by the way, I read a very interesting and sobering [00:36:00] statistic that 85 percent of pastors do not pray together with their spouse. They all have their own prayer life, so they're doing great that way, but even the power of coming into agreement with one another in prayer that Jesus promised in Matthew 18, 19 even that kind of stuff, like that, that changes things.

[00:36:21] And and then there's a few other there's 10 habits that we identified altogether. So when we shift the spiritual atmosphere, what actually happens is it becomes a lot easier for the couple to do the next most difficult thing that they need to do, which is to identify and break off the spiritual blockages.

[00:36:43] So this is where example, for example and and this as well as I do, a lot of the past hurts. The key to healing is forgiveness. And quite often we are reluctant to forgive, I think [00:37:00] often because of a faulty understanding of forgiveness forgive, because that's because we forgive, we're not excusing the offender of what they did.

[00:37:07] Scott Maderer: People think forgiveness means that you're letting them off the hook, quote unquote. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. not actually what it means, but that's what it feels like sometimes. Yeah, exactly.

[00:37:16] Jeeva Sam: Yeah. Yeah. And so once you forgive, you're the one that now is set free. The other person will may never, actually, they may not even think they need to be forgiven that they did nothing wrong

[00:37:27] Scott Maderer: But the other person's.

[00:37:29] burden that they're carrying is theirs not yours anymore. Exactly. The problem is without forgiveness now you're carrying their burden and yours. Yeah, exactly. You're carrying twice the weight.

[00:37:40] Jeeva Sam: Yeah. So we take them through this whole second block of removing spiritual blockages and sometimes, not just sometimes, quite often we find that this is something that we actually have to invite someone else who's more trained in that kind of ministry to work with that couple [00:38:00] and take them really deep.

[00:38:02] So sometimes that could be 10, 15, 20 hours with each person. But once they go through that process, like one of the processes that we use, the ministry that we use is called Restoring the Foundations. And when people go through that, then it just cleans them right out because they begin to identify, again, it's the help of the Holy Spirit that, that they do this like some of these what they call ungodly beliefs that they grew up with, negative expectations, where do those come from, and then replacing them with godly beliefs and expecting the best.

[00:38:38] And so once they get past that, Now we find that we can teach them how to communicate properly, how to resolve conflict how to your big emphasis on stewardship of time, stewardship of finances the sexual connection [00:39:00] setting boundaries, all these kinds of things, they are now at a point of not only listening to them, but receiving them.

[00:39:08] and applying them because before they, they may have actually known the same things that we teach in terms of some of these areas, but before they couldn't apply them, they'll start applying them and the big fight would break up. And now all of a sudden it's okay their hearts are softened and they don't have the old demons all of a sudden showing up and messing things up.

[00:39:31] And so now they're actually able to apply them. And not only do they get the breakthrough, now they're able to walk in that breakthrough from that point onwards.

[00:39:42] Scott Maderer: So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there, is there anything else about the work you do with marriages that you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:39:54] Jeeva Sam: I think one of the things that I would encourage everyone to do actually is [00:40:00] at the at the earliest sign or signal that there's things that are not totally right in the marriage that maybe you're trying to Keep some things to yourself. You're afraid of things, bring things out, or maybe you've had a conflict that you never got, never ended up resolving.

[00:40:18] Find somebody who can help you. There's nothing wrong in asking for help. As a matter of fact in, in, when I connect with other pastors, one of the things that they always tell me is that people often will come to them, at a point where they're saying, we can't do this anymore. Had they come to them a year or two ahead of time when they when the, again, like the best description I can give is when you sense the earliest signs

[00:40:49] Scott Maderer: at

[00:40:49] Jeeva Sam: that point, reach out for help and start addressing them.

[00:40:54] And also I feel like leaders must cultivate an atmosphere where [00:41:00] people feel free and not shame in bringing these things up or any kind of a fear of being punished. For being open about it. And so when you create that kind of a free atmosphere then I believe that's the, that's one of the best things that you can do.

[00:41:17] And most of the time we find that couples come to us because they did not address the things that came up early enough and just let them fester.

[00:41:27] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So you mentioned earlier stewardship, and of course I run things through the brand of Inspired Stewardship, but stewardship is one of those words that it has a certain connotation and meaning, but I've learned over the years that it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

[00:41:44] So when you hear the word stewardship, What does that word mean to you?

[00:41:49] Jeeva Sam: Okay. So first of all, to me, the most fundamental thing about stewardship is that everything belongs to God. And so stewardship means we're given [00:42:00] the responsibility of doing with what God has given us, what he has entrusted to us to, to stewardship involves, of course our time, our talents, our finances.

[00:42:15] Of course, as time goes on you begin to realize that time, the stewardship of time is a very valuable asset because you never get it back. And so it's to be responsible with God has entrusted you. But one of the things that that I had to get over this was in, from my early days, you'd asked about how your faith grows through the years is the tithe is the Lord's.

[00:42:42] And the rest is my no.

[00:42:44] Scott Maderer: 100 percent

[00:42:45] Jeeva Sam: is the Lord's. And I'm thankful for the privilege of giving him the 10 percent that he's recommending.

[00:42:53] Scott Maderer: And

[00:42:53] Jeeva Sam: so it's a fundamental shift that I need to make along the way. And so when I take that seriously, [00:43:00] that it's like I have this boss who has given me this job and I'm being judged on how I do the job.

[00:43:06] That's the way I got to look at my whole life. This is a gift from God and how I spend my time. everything that is given to me my, my time my energy, my talents, my gifts and even the responsibilities in the context of marriage, family, raising children, and now being a grandfather.

[00:43:27] All these are all encompassing in stewardship.

[00:43:32] Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I love to ask everybody. Imagine for a minute that I invented this magic machine and with this machine, I could pluck you from where you are today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years.

[00:43:47] But through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left behind. What impact do you hope you've left in the world? [00:44:00]

[00:44:01] Jeeva Sam: I think the impact that that I aim to see whether it's with the marriage mentorship within my, in my years as a pastor or in mentoring people in the business realm is transformation.

[00:44:14] That's a transformation that they experienced actually was not just for them, but it was a transformation that they could then transmit. To their family, to their enterprises, so it, it goes way past their lifetimes and the fact of the matter is they may never be able to trace it back to me, and that's, to me, that's not the point,

[00:44:39] Scott Maderer: it's

[00:44:39] Jeeva Sam: not, it's not about getting credit for it but knowing that maybe a seed that you planted, maybe the three months that you worked with a couple or the year that you spent mentoring someone made a difference, to their lives, but then it kept on carrying over the blessing kept on going past from generation to generation.[00:45:00]

[00:45:01] Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you as you continue on this journey?

[00:45:05] Jeeva Sam: So a couple of years ago again, in my quiet time, I felt God say to me this is right after we published our book actually. And he said I want to want you to use the content of what's in that book to save 50, 000 marriages from divorce in the next five years.

[00:45:25] And I'm like, okay. Did I hear correctly? 50, 000? Because we only take on two or three couples at a time and we cannot do that. So immediately I knew that we, this is not something for us to do on our own, that we need to, first of all, train other people to also do the marriage mentorship. And so we immediately started doing that.

[00:45:46] And then through a whole series of circumstances, we ended up with a booth at a wedding show. Where couples are coming to make sure they got the right photographer, the videographer the [00:46:00] flowers and all this kind of stuff. And there was took out like a sore thumb saying by the way, what happens the day after you're married?

[00:46:08] Scott Maderer: By the way, we're here to talk to you about the fact that your marriages is all going to be roses. Yeah, I'm sure that goes over real well.

[00:46:17] Jeeva Sam: And of course like most couples very openly say no, we don't have a need for marriage preparation. We already know each other. We've been living together for four years.

[00:46:25] I knew each other for six before that. Everything we need to know about each other, we can handle everything together and so on. So it's you know what? Hey, that's awesome. Would you kindly take this card with you and put it somewhere safe? Because in case you need us down the road just know that there's somebody available for you.

[00:46:40] But all of a sudden it's like the Lord opened our eyes to see that part of that vision of that 50, 000 marriages being saved from divorce begins before people get married. And so if they can get off to a good start, or even if they just had some tools. So to that group, we basically [00:47:00] promote our book, As like a marriage in a box, essentially that any situation you run into, you can look it up there and there'll be some way that you can go through it and come through it more importantly.

[00:47:12] And so to me that's our next project really is to refine that because when we do the marriage mentorship we expect couples to make a 12 week commitment to us. And then another three months of 12 weeks, meaning 12 weeks of meeting with us weekly and so on, and then three months of meeting with us monthly.

[00:47:31] So six months altogether in the premarital stage that we can expect that kind of a commitment. And so the strategy that we're using right now is. Let's help you do an assessment of where your relationship is at before you get married. And we know they won't follow up with anything before marriage, unless something really serious crops up in that assessment.

[00:47:54] But afterwards we'll we're again exploring some models of [00:48:00] how can we make it possible for them to keep in touch with us, continue to reach out to us, receive from us and so on. Yeah, so that's next on the go.

[00:48:11] Scott Maderer: Awesome. And you can find out more about Jeeva and the book The Unbreakable Marriage and the processes they use over at TheSams.

[00:48:24] ca for Canada. Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Jeeva, anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:48:33] Jeeva Sam: I think one of the things that I would want to tell everybody is that especially those of you who are married, God brought you together. Thank you. For a purpose, there was a dream on God's heart for you, not just the dreams that you carried in your hearts and your marriage covenant is first and foremost with God and then with each other.

[00:48:54] And because it's a covenant you made with God. God is firmly behind this covenant and behind your [00:49:00] marriage, and He will move heaven and earth to make sure that your marriage lives up to its full potential. So whatever you don't give up too soon. Do whatever it takes. And when you do what only you can do, you watch as God does what only He can do.

[00:49:25] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.

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