Justin Davis's Blog

When I was in high school I remember my basketball coach saying, “For every day you don’t practice, it will take you two days to get better than you are today.” I have no idea if that was a true statement, but it stuck with me. It upped my commitment to practice. I didn’t want to take a day off.

When I got married, I just assumed that love would compensate for a lot. I loved my wife, so I could take a day off here and there.

We love each other so date nights can be optional

We love each other so working 80 hours a week will be ok

We love each other so she knows how sorry I am for losing my temper

We love each other so not doing most of the things that caused us to want to be married in the first place will be fine

Most marriages don’t crash and burn all at once. Most count on their stated love for one another to compensate for a slow drift away from loving choices.

What we’ve learned is that most average marriages are only a few intentional choices away from becoming great. The problem is that most of us don’t make intentional choices, we just have good intentions. It’s not that we don’t have the desire for our marriage to change, it’s just we don’t make the commitment to the change we desire.

Lasting change in our marriage starts with allowing God to change our hearts. Only you can choose that. Your spouse can’t choose that for you and most importantly, you can’t choose that for your spouse. All you can pray is, “God change me.” That is a prayer God loves to answer.

So assuming that heart change is mutually pursued here are a few small, intentional steps you can choose that will make a huge difference in your marriage.

Pray for your wife before you go to bed

Write a love note and put it somewhere your husband will find it

Go out on a date this Saturday without the kids

Pray for your husband and text him and tell him you’re praying for him

Go to coffee and talk about 2013 goals that you have

Don’t turn on the TV for an evening and just sit and talk

Buy her flowers for no particular reason

Initiate sexual intimacy with him for no particular reason

Say, “I love you” in writing, in speech and in text messages every day

Stop pointing out what your spouse does wrong tell them what you love about them

As you look at this list, it doesn’t qualify as rocket science. It seems pretty basic as you read it. Most of us have great intentions in doing this list…but great intentions won’t change your marriage.

My guess is your marriage isn’t that far away from greatness. It is only a few intentional choices away.

Good news: You can start today.

Be a part of our 21 Days to an Extraordinary Marriage course. We start January 1, 2018.

The post You Can Start Today appeared first on Refine Us.

Why do we hide so easily?

Fear of rejection.

Fear of judgment.

Fear of the consequences of honesty.

Fear of losing a relationship.

No decision made in fear is ever healthy.

I think it was Andy Stanley that said, “We fear the consequences of confession because we have yet to realize the consequences of concealment.”

I spent three years in an “accountability “ relationship in which I wasn’t transparent. I shared just enough with my accountability partner to look accountable. It is an exhausting way to live. Lying to the people that are closest to you is never life giving.

I want to be known. I want to feel loved. The path to being loved and known is by being transparent. I am consistently asking myself these questions as I attempt to be transparent…maybe they will help you today:

1. Am I telling the entire truth right now?

Shading the truth is easy. Exaggerating is often unnoticeable. As I am telling any story, but especially a story about myself, I want to always ask, “Am I telling the entire truth right now? Am I leave anything out or adding anything to this story? Am I lying when the truth will do?”

2. Am I sharing details that will make me look more spiritual than I really am?

You know how this rolls…we share parts of our heart with someone and 100% of our motivation is to show them how “close to God” we are. We want them to think of us as spiritual; we want to appear put together; we want to settle any doubt they may have of our relationship with God.



3. Am I trying to protect someone with only part of the truth?

I convince myself that if I tell the truth, it is only going to hurt a particular relationship. Truth does hurt a relationship…but it hurts like the setting of a broken bone hurts. There is tremendous pain in the moment, but then the relationship is set back in place to be stronger than it was before.

4. Am I telling myself the truth?

Sometime the person I need to be the most honest with is myself. I can deceive myself easier than anyone else. If I can’t be honest with myself, then I’m incapable of being honest with others.

These are four questions I use to be transparent, what would you add or take away?

The post 4 Questions that Lead to Freedom appeared first on Refine Us.

It was the summer of 1996. Only four months into my twenty-first year of life and already so much life had been lived. Justin and I had barley passed the finish line into our first year of marriage when we became first time parents. In the span one year, we went from college life, to married life, to soon-to-be parent life. So much life change in one year.

On July 19th four days after celebrating our first year of marriage, I went into labor. While most women focus on the birthing process, all I could think about was sandwiches. Sandwiches. The only real food I was good at making. How many kinds of sandwiches could I come up with to feed this child over the next eighteen years of his life? I moved from sandwiches to kindergarten. How do I get him kindergarten ready? And friends. What about his friends? Would he get bullied? Would he be the bully? And marriage. What about his future wife? Would I like her? Would she like me? So many questions, all while breathing in and breathing out.

At approximately 2:20 pm on July 20th Micah was born. With one final push, everything changed. Sandwiches, friends, bullies and his future wife would be tabled as the joy and indescribable love for this tiny human melted our hearts and lavished us with a sense of belonging. Our marriage of two had become a family of three. This belonging was both mystical and natural. A bond so deep and authentic, it was like we had never known life any other way.

We belonged together.

Belonging is a powerful word. It’s a word that simply says you are invited in, you are welcome here. You belong simply for being you. Belonging never subtracts, it always adds. My family growing up was my first place of belonging. Marriage was my first invitation to belong till death do us part. Motherhood was my first experience of getting to add someone into our belonging.

Unfortunately, many of us know the pain of not being extended the invitation to belong. The pain of being uninvited. The “friend” who never reciprocated. The heartbreak of a divorce. The words “you didn’t get the job.”

Relationships oftentimes produce more fear rather than more friends. The fear of not being enough keeps relationships from even forming. Fear robs us of rich joy-filled community. Fear causes us to refuse the invitation to belong to avoid risking the pain of rejection. The fear of a revoked invitation can render anyone to feel small and unimportant. The battle between belonging and the fear of not being enough is exhausting. Fear-based living is like living half alive.

When we refuse to risk, relationships remain surface level.

When we refuse to risk, marriages become stagnant.

When we refuse to risk, parenting becomes controlling.

When we refuse to risk, faith is replaced by fear.

We started RefineUs Ministries in 2009, with a passion to help relationships, especially marriages, find restored hope and a renewed relationship. Because we know that all of us have a deep desire to be fully known and to be fully loved. We risked going first with our story of failure, loss and redemption, in hopes others would go second. Our story gave us a platform to say to those who would listen, if you’ve ever messed-up, if you’ve ever felt betrayed or forgotten, we get you. YOU BELONG.

You belong to a Savior that says you belong in his kingdom because you are loved, you are chosen, you are redeemed. There are no cliques. No platforms. No striving. No favorites. In fact, in his kingdom, the last will be first and first will be last.

Risk is the pathway to belonging. Risk is placing your trust in Jesus knowing no matter how much people fail you, HE NEVER WILL. Whether in the labor and delivery room worrying about sandwiches or amid relational heartbreak, FREEDOM is found in knowing YOU BELONG! Jesus died to secure your rightful place of belonging to HIM. Jesus was a perfect friend who still chose to risk loving imperfect people because he knew to whom he belonged. Every day is a choice to reciprocate that same sense of belonging by living a life of risk with MESSY people. Because this type of messy belonging never subtracts… it always adds, it adds community and it adds to the kingdom. Who is God asking you to take a risk and extend an invitation to belong?

The post The Invitation to Belong Part 1 appeared first on Refine Us.

Silence with God is a good thing. It is often in our silence that God speaks the loudest. We are even commanded in Scripture to “be still and know that He is God.” Our silence helps us feel God’s presence.

Silence from God is completely different. Silence from God is scary. Silence from God is disappointing. God’s silence causes us to doubt His presence.

We often believe God’s presence is always accompanied by his activity. When God isn’t obviously active, then He must be absent.

We aren’t the only ones to believe this.

After witnessing the death and burial of Jesus, His closest followers thought God’s silence meant his absence. God’s lack of movement meant a lack of care.

Saturday was silent.

Silent Saturday is void of hope. Silent Saturday is the day the dream is still lost. Silent Saturday is the day the body is still in the tomb. Silent Saturday is when death seems to win.

Most of us don’t function well on Silent Saturday. God’s silence in our lives doesn’t help us experience Him…it causes us to doubt Him.

Maybe you have a relationship that has died. Maybe your job is in jeopardy. Maybe your marriage is on life support or maybe it has been in the tomb longer than three days. Maybe your financial situation seems beyond repair. Maybe uncertainty and doubt greet you in the morning and are the last things you feel before you go to bed. Maybe God’s silence in your life these days has allowed the voices of fear and anxiety to become loud.

Can I share a few thoughts with you on this Silent Saturday?

-Hopelessness always comes before a resurrection

-Sometimes our dream has to die before God can give birth to His vision

-When I think God has made His last move, it was really just the start of His movement in my life

-Sometimes God allows us to lose hope so we can can find our true hope in Him

-What we see as defeat, failure and loss He sees as an opportunity to demonstrate His power and His plan

-When I lose hope, it’s because I live in Silent Saturday and forget about Easter Sunday

Maybe today, you find your life somewhere between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Can I just encourage you that you are not in a season of defeat but a season of preparation. God’s silence today is in preparation for His resurrection tomorrow.

Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up. Don’t forget that death is defeated. The grave is overcome and God speaks loudly as He brings things back to life.

The silence of Saturday always comes before Resurrection Sunday.

The post The Silence of Saturday appeared first on Refine Us.

In the fall of 2013, I was invited by one my closest friends Lindsey Nobles, to attend a retreat with 60 other women in Austin, Texas to hear about the vision of a new ministry called IF:GATHERING. I had no idea what to expect or who would be there and to be honest, I really didn’t want to go. I was in the midst of some major changes for me and my family and for the first time in a long time, I felt a bit lost and fragile. The last thing I needed was to be surrounded by a group of women changing the world one confident step at a time.

But Lindsey….

 

If you know Lindsey, you would know she’s the type of friend that refuses to let you struggle alone and is bold enough to drag you out of your insecurity right into the loving arms of community.

And so I went…

And just like I knew I would, I found myself surrounded by a bunch of world-changing women, who were as passionate about changing the world, as they were their calling. Founder Jennie Allen shared her heart for IF:Gathering to become a ministry that would gather, equip, and unleash women to live out God’s call on their lives. I tried hard not to roll my eyes as she spoke because deep down I knew the sacrifice of ministry and apparently she was too naïve to know better. I tried even harder to hide my fragile heart because I absolutely loathed feeling like I was the only one in the room who didn’t have it together, who wasn’t ready to charge the next hill all in the name of calling and because I know women.

Women gossip.

Women are incredibly critical.

Women are extremely competitive.

Women are often insecure bullies.

I left the retreat feeling more defeated than when I came. I felt alone in my wrestling. I knew what stepping out in faith meant. I knew what it was like to answer the question “What IF” and give up everything I know and love for the cause of Christ. I’d experienced “risking it all” more than once and was burned relationally along the way. Maybe life wasn’t meant to be lived bravely, risking and trusting all in the name of Christ. Maybe guarded and cautious was truly the wiser way to live. Maybe all this talk about boldly living out our calling was a bunch of self-help jargon to make us feel better about our lives?

So when I attend the first official launch of IF:Gathering in February of 2014, I went more to support Lindsey than to support the vision. But God, in only a way he could, used IF:Gathering as a launching pad to surround me with some amazing friendships. Friendships rekindled and some brand new with women who would bravely and boldly love me in my mess of uncertainty and jaded disbelief. Who stayed true to their words by faithfully believing in me personally and professionally when I didn’t have the capacity to believe in myself.

Because of their love and belief in me, I’ve had a drastic change in how I see myself and my calling. I’ve learned it is better to be in messy community than alone in my own mess. That when we love like Jesus (who was the master of loving messy people) our natural response is to love others with the same kind of love. That there is power in seeing each other beyond our titles, age, race or seasons of life. Because at the end of day, we are all daughters of the King who makes room for ALL OF US at his table.

But it comes at a cost.

If we want to be fully known in order to be fully loved, then we have to be willing to be fully honest and vulnerable. We have to be willing to have the hard conversations most would rather avoid. Conversations like how we often make each other feel uninvited and undervalued; How marriage, raising children and relationships can be as difficult as it is beautiful when trying to live out our calling. How every day is a choice to choose to encourage, instead of criticize; speak hard truth in love, instead of gossip and invite each other in rather than compete.

I’m excited to be a part of IF:Gathering this year and I’m praying for those of you who are feeling alone in your mess and calling. I’m praying you will choose to be brave and find your own messy community. Is it risky? Yes! Are there women who will still gossip, compete and bully? Absolutely.

So what if you chose to go first by gathering a group of women in your local community in need of an invitation to messy community? What if you created a community where women could gather and wrestle with how to love a each other like Jesus loved in order to love a hurting world? What if you loved so boldly you could unleash the women around you to begin living fully alive in their callings. WHAT IF?

The post IF:Gathering: Finding My Messy Community appeared first on Refine Us.

A few years ago, we almost quit marriage ministry. Before the book; before the RefineUs Weekend; before our marriage conferences….we almost called it quits.

We almost quit not because we didn’t want to invest in marriages but because we were doing a horrible job equipping couples to have the marriage God had in mind. We traveled and shared our story but never walked with couples along the journey of marriage.

Because of that desire to equip marriages, we created a resource called MentorUs. It is a 52-week marriage devotional that is emailed to couples every single week. Over the past three years, we’ve had over 3,000 couples sign up for MentorUs.

There are a number of lessons we’ve learned from the couples that have gone through MentorUs but there are two that have impacted us the most.

Every couple wants to improve in their marriage; many just don’t know where to start.
A 52-week program can feel overwhelming and be defeating if you fall behind.

A few weeks ago, Trish and I were talking about these two realities, and what we could do different in 2016.

What if we could equip more couples in a more effective way to have the best year of their marriage? How can we do that in a way that empowers them and doesn’t overwhelm or discourage them?

It was in that conversation that IgniteUs was born. IgniteUs is a 21-day challenge/journey we have created to jump-start your marriage and provide you with both a practical and realistic way to kick off 2016 in an amazing way.

You can find more info about IgniteUs HERE, but let me give you the headlines.

Brand new content via a daily 5-7-minute video sent directly to your inbox. (Each video is archived on a web site you will have lifetime access to if you fall behind)
A weekly phone call with Trish and myself to ask questions and get input
A private Facebook group to connect with other couples as we go through the 21-Days so you can know you’re not alone on the journey.
A weekly discussion guide to help foster conversation and growth.

We’re including other bonuses and free stuff that will give you tools and guidance for the rest of 2016. (You can see that complete list here.)

Registration opened December 1, and the introductory price of $67 (basically $3 per day for 21 days) will go up after December 15th. We will close registration December 31st.

What if 2016 could be the best year of your marriage? We think it can be and we want to help you get there.

Click HERE to be a part of this 21 Day Journey

If money is tight, we’ve made a payment option available for you. Click HERE for that option.

The post What We’ve Learned from 3,000 Couples appeared first on Refine Us.

A few days ago I was talking to a friend that just started dating a young lady. You could hear the excitement in his voice as he told me how they met; about the friends that had introduced them and his first impressions of her.

He told me where she was from, a little about her family and what he liked most about her. A few minutes into our conversation he started listing for me all of the things that they had “in common.”

I put quotes around “in common” because that was his term. “Justin, you won’t believe all the things we have in common. It’s crazy how much alike we are.” I was sucked into his euphoria. I wanted to hear more about this relationship because he was so pumped up about it.

“Our birthdays are in the same month.”

“She is from Illinois and I’ve been to Illinois.”

“She likes crab cakes and I’ve eaten them before.”

“Her eyes are brown and I have brown hair.”

I’m obviously embellishing a little bit on how he described all they had in common…but not by much. He wanted to see all of the positive things that could make this relationship work.

I walked away from that conversation happier. It had been a while since I had encountered such relational optimism. When you like someone you look for all the reasons why it could work. When you like someone you believe you have everything in common.

My guess is most marriage relationships start out here. I know ours did. When Trish and I met, we didn’t see any differences only what we had in common. The excitement and energy of our relationship was born out of what could be.

Many marriages drift to a place of ordinary not because of huge seismic shifts, but a little drifting over time. Part of that drifting is in the way we see our spouse.

Rather than focusing on all that we love about them; all that is amazing about them; all that we have in common we start focusing on all of our differences.

She is a morning person and I’m a night owl.
He is always late and I am always on time.
She is extraverted and I am introverted.
He is spontaneous and I’m a planner.

The list can go on and on. What happens is the very things that caused us to fall in love with our spouse become the things that drive us the most crazy.

You want to change how you feel about your spouse? Change the way you think about them. Look for the things you have in common. Look for the things that you love about them. It’s amazing how changing our focus can transform our feelings.

What if today you made a list of five things you love about your spouse? What if you thought on that list all day long? You think you’d appreciate them more tonight?

What if you shared that list with your spouse this evening? Small decisions made over time can have a huge impact.

The post Everything in Common appeared first on Refine Us.

One of my favorite things about RefineUs, is the opportunity it has given us to travel and meet people from all over the world. One of my (Trisha) most favorite and memorable introductions took place when I met Raechel Myers in 2013. I initially met Raechel as we both boarded a plane in Nashville, TN to attend the same conference in Austin, Texas.

To begin with, I was a bit of a hot mess during this trip. Justin had recently stepped down from a full–time position at our church to go part-time, so we could both serve RefineUs full-time as authors, bloggers and speakers. I knew how to be a pastor’s wife but I had no idea what these new titles even meant. Now I was sitting on a plane headed to an event for women authors, bloggers and speakers.

After the plane landed we hopped into a shuttle van already loaded with a handful of women. As they started to introduce themselves, trying to stall for time, I nervously searched for a way to buckle myself in, secretly panicking as to which group I should lump myself into as I introduced myself. I was still pretty new to this whole author, blogger, speaker world and not only did I fumble trying to put a coherent introduction together, I almost forgot my name.

But then Raechel…

Raechel sat next to me and started to introduced herself. She had such a peaceful-joy about her, I immediately felt my body relax over the relief that maybe these next few days wouldn’t be so bad after all. She shared with me the miraculous story of her ministry. How she, along with her amazing co-founder Amanda Bible Williams, were also stepping out in faith to launch She Reads Truth, even though, they too lacked the right titles for the job. She was absolutely glowing as she shared how God was allowing them to reach over a million women in the infancy stage of SRT, not with a hint of pride but more out of a posture of “can you even believe how awesome God is?”.

Did I mention the part where she woke-up that morning before getting on the plane in Nashville, to the heartbreaking reality that she was miscarrying? Yes, this pure radiant-joy-filled woman was in the midst of a miscarriage. And although tears were shed during our conversation, she had an unexplainable peace and joy! A peace and joy, flowing out of a heart rooted in God’s word, producing an unwavering trust that Jesus IS in the details and one day she would be reunited with her baby.

That conversation, on that shuttle, as I fought with an non existent seat belt, on my way to my scary event, marked me in two very specific ways. First, it was a wake-up call to reclaim who I have always been… HIS. Regardless of my job title, marital status or season of life, my identity is found in a faithful God who loved me before I loved him. And secondly, in order to live out this truth, I have to constantly keep myself bathed in HIS truth… in other words, I need to daily OPEN MY BIBLE!

Racheal and Amanda are like Christmas lattes from Starbucks. They are strong, bold, sweet, special and leave you feeling whimsical about life. I love them both deeply and have been inspired by their tenacious work ethic to inspire woman to open their bibles and get in the word of God. She Reads Truth and their newly launched He Reads Truth are changing how we see and read God’s word!

Check out their video.

So in the spirit of Christmas we want to give away some fun FREE stuff. You can enter to win of one of these five amazing giveaways.

A copy of She Reads Truth’s BRAND NEW resource “Open Your Bible” bible study and She Reads Truth journal
A copy of He Reads Truth’s “The Legacy Series: Daniel“
A copy of “Beyond Ordinary” plus a $50 Gift card
IgniteUs “21 days to an extraordinary marriage”
$100 Gift card

Raechel and Amanda continue to inspire us to keep stepping out in faith, which, is both exhilarating and scary as all get out. With over 30,000 monthly readers on our blog and over 12,000 followers on our RefineUs Facebook page, we are excited to expand our reach by officially launching our RefineUs Instagram account!

To ENTER TO WIN follow us on Instagram at RefineUs. We’ll pick 4 winners at the end of the week and have the prizes to you before Christmas!

 

The post She Reads Truth appeared first on Refine Us.

 

What if 2016 could be the best year of your marriage? The reality is you can’t change 2015…It’s almost over. But you can have a great start to 2016 by being a part of The RefineUs Weekend Experience in Nashville.

Twice a year, we host a weekend in Nashville, called The RefineUs Weekend Experience, to help couples move from where they are with God and each other, to where they deeply desire to be.

Each of the last three years, these weekends have sold out.

The first of the two weekends in 2016 is coming up January 8-10, 2016.

We have two spots open for this weekend and the Super Early Bird Rate is good until December 1, 2015.

Here are some things that are different about the RefineUs Weekend:

The weekend is reserved for just 10 couples
The environment is set up more like a living room than a lecture hall
You have time for Q&A
We eat a few meals together
We’ll give you tools to continue the journey for an entire year after the weekend ends.

Registration for this weekend will increase by $100. You can save if you register this week before December 1, 2015.

For more info about the weekend, you can check out RefineUs Weekend by Clicking HERE.

The post 2016: The Best Year of Your Marriage! appeared first on Refine Us.

Holidays used to be really hard on our marriage. Some of our biggest arguments would come on our way to or on our way home from Thanksgiving or Christmas with family.

Unmet expectations. Unspoken expectations. Little patience. Harsh tones of voices. Short fuses. Those are some phrases that described us as we spent holidays with extended family.

When our marriage imploded and we began to address some of our own dysfunction we came up with a few things that have helped us not just survive time with extended family, but truly enjoy it.

Here are 3 things that may help you as you spend time with family this week:

1. Give up your need to fix your family. 

I think all of us have this unspoken belief that we are the only normal ones in our family. Everyone else in our family is broken and we can fix them. We can fix how they parent their kids. We can fix how they spend their money. We can fix their marriage problems. We can fix their singleness and dating problems. We can fix them.

The truth is you can’t and it isn’t your job to fix your family. It’s your job to love your family. Everyone will have a better Thanksgiving if we love our family and not try to fix them.

2. Give your spouse grace as they spend time with their respective families. 

Both Trish and I had such high expectations of one another as we’d visit family. We expected each other to react perfectly; to parent perfectly; to always say the right thing; to have it all together all the time. The reality is that the family we both go home to now is different than the family that we grew up with. So giving each other grace to navigate some of those differences communicates that we are a team and not enemies. Thanksgiving will be so much better laced with grace.

3. Cherish the time you get to spend with family. 

This is our first Thanksgiving with our college age son. We are cherishing every moment we get with him this week.

I allowed too many holidays to go by without savoring the time. I want to take in every moment.

We aren’t guaranteed time; it is on loan to us. I want to cherish the time I spend with family. When I treat the time we spend with my wife’s family as valuable, it shows that I value her.

These are 3 things that won’t give you a perfect Thanksgiving, but I’m pretty sure they’ll change you as you experience Thanksgiving. They’ve change us over the past few years.

We are so thankful for you and hope you have a great week.

How do you survive family dynamics during the holidays? 

The post 3 Ways to Actually Enjoy Your Family This Thanksgiving appeared first on Refine Us.