The American Soul

Your Phone Won’t Cry At Your Funeral, But Your Spouse Might

• Jesse • Season 5 • Episode 185

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What if the most important work you do today is simply turning toward the people you love? We start with loss, not to linger in sorrow, but to remember what actually lasts. Things break. Trends fade. Screens keep scrolling. People are eternal, and how we treat them shapes our homes, our communities, and our future.

From that center, we dive into Ephesians 5 and talk plainly about marriage as a living picture of Christ and the church. It’s not a contest for control but a call to mutual honor: husbands who nourish and cherish, wives who respect and strengthen. We look at the habits that erode intimacy—endless scrolling, divided attention, sharp words—and the small daily choices that restore it: gentleness, presence, and the courage to serve first.

We then follow the Magi’s star to rediscover worship that moves us to act. Their long road, costly gifts, and obedience to change course teach us how to seek Jesus with intention and joy. Along the way, we honor John Gregory Bourke’s “gallantry in action,” a reminder that much of the courage that holds a nation together goes uncelebrated. We also revisit Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1939 Christmas message, with its call to neighborliness, mercy, and living for others, even as storms gather. The takeaway is urgent yet hopeful: prepare your heart before the storm, anchor your days in Christ, and give your first fruits to the people God has entrusted to you.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, subscribe for more reflections on faith and American heritage, and leave a review so others can find the show. What one small act of care will you offer someone today?

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SPEAKER_01:

Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all's day is going well, wherever y'all are in whatever part you're in.

SPEAKER_00:

Hope that your Christmas season has gone very well.

SPEAKER_01:

For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it, thank you. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00:

Very grateful for your prayers. Father, thank you for today.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for this day that you have made. Thank you for all the many blessings that you bestow upon us, the ones we admit and the ones we don't, for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for the people that you've put in our lives. Those who have set a good example for us and their life of following you and your son Jesus Christ. Help us most of all to follow the example that your son set. To serve others, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. And to love our neighbors as ourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Forgive us our sins, our greed, our selfishness, pride, arrogance, judgment of others, rash words and actions, our cowardice and our unbelief.

SPEAKER_00:

We do believe. Help us to overcome our unbelief. Forgive us when we neglect the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. Guide our steps.

SPEAKER_01:

Be with the leaders that we have, both in the pulpit and in the state. Be with our military, law enforcement, firefighters, EMF.

SPEAKER_00:

Be with those listening to the podcast, Father, comfort them. Be with their families, bless their marriages. Be with those who are brokenhearted, Father, draw close to them. Help us to cling to the hope that you promise and offer through your Son Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01:

Help us to cling to that hope of Christmas and Easter all year long throughout our lives and to share that hope and that light and that joy, that comfort and peace with others.

SPEAKER_00:

And God, my word here, Father, please, in your Son's name we pray. Amen. So we had somebody pretty close to us pass away recently. And it reminded me yet again of the importance of people.

SPEAKER_01:

When you look at Christ throughout the New Testament, you consistently see that his priority was people.

SPEAKER_00:

Saving the lost, caring for those who were hurting. It wasn't things. It was never things.

SPEAKER_01:

You can see that kind of in that exchange between Jesus and his disciples talking about how grand these buildings were. You know, what does Christ say?

SPEAKER_00:

He says, not even one stone is going to be left on another. Things pass, they're temporary. Only people are eternal. And Christ alone determines where we spend that eternity.

SPEAKER_01:

I think too often we take people for granted that are really close to us, that care about us the most, the people that we ought to put the most effort into.

SPEAKER_00:

Spouse. Spouse way before anyone else.

SPEAKER_01:

Kids, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, coworkers, neighbors. And I think that's been exacerbated with screen. We stare at screens for hours. They're not real. We have no immediate interaction, face-to-face interaction with those people. And yet we give screen so much time and energy and effort and emotion. Think about how excited or angry or upset or anxious you get about a sporting event or a TV show.

SPEAKER_00:

People should get those first fruits, those first efforts, not the leftovers.

SPEAKER_01:

And I just encourage you to do that in the light of us losing someone very dear to us recently.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't wait until it's too late to pour your time and energy and effort and affection into where it ought to go always, people. Marriage verse for today. Ephesians 5 22 through 33.

SPEAKER_01:

Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

SPEAKER_00:

Scripture for today, we're kind of gonna kind of gonna go off course again.

SPEAKER_01:

I wanted to one of my favorite stories as a kid was always the story of the wise men of the magi. And so I wanted to read that again today. It comes out of Matthew 2. Start with verse one. The visit of the Magi. Excuse me. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They said to him in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been written by the prophet. And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah. For out of you shall come forth a ruler, who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them the exact time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child, and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him. After hearing the king they went their way, and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. When they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. After coming into the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi left for their own country by another way. Interesting book.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, just kind of interesting if you were looking for a book with some pretty good pictures to read at Christmas time with your kids. So the Medal of Honor for today is John Gregory Bork.

SPEAKER_01:

Private, highest rank Brevit Major, U.S. Civil War, Echo Company, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, U.S. Army, December 1862, Stone River, Tennessee, gallantry in action. That's it. That's the whole citation. Accredited to Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, not awarded post-humously. Presented November 16, 1887, born June 23rd, 1846, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Died June 8, 1896. Buried Arlington National Cemetery, 1 Tac 52 Tac A, Arlington, Virginia. John Gregory Bourke. Definitely one of those that you wish there was some more detail about. Apparently, we didn't write very long citations in the military for Medal of Honor winners back in the day. It began with dread of evil things to come, and it ends with the horror of another war adding its toll of anguish to a world already bowed under the burden of suffering laid upon it by man's inhumanity to man. But thank God for the interlude of Christmas. This night is a night of joy and hope and happiness and promise of better things to come. And so in the happiness of this eve of the most blessed day in the year, I give to all of my countrymen the old, old greeting. Merry Christmas. Happy Christmas. A Christmas right for me is always to reread that immortal little story by Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol, reading between the lines and thinking, as I always do of Bob Cratchett's humble home as a counterpart of millions of our own American homes. The story takes on a stirring significance to me. Old Scrooge found that Christmas wasn't a humbug. He took to himself the spirit of neighborliness. But today, neighborliness no longer can be confined to one's little neighborhood. Life has become too complex for that. In our country, neighborliness has gradually spread its boundaries from town to county to state, and now at last to the whole nation. For instance, who a generation ago would have thought that a week from tomorrow, January 1st, 1940, tens of thousands of elderly men and women in every state and every county and every city of the nation would begin to receive checks every month for old age retirement insurance. And not only that, but that there would be also insurance benefits for the wife, the widow, the orphan children, and even dependent parents. Who would have thought a generation ago that people who lost their jobs would, for an appreciable period, receive unemployment insurance? That the needy, the blind, and the crippled children would receive some measure of protection, which will reach down to the millions of Bob Cratchits, the Marthas, and the tiny Thames of our own four-room homes. In these days of strife and sadness in many other lands, let us in the nations which still live at peace forbear to give thanks only for our good fortune in our peace. Let us pray that we may be given strength to live for others, to live more closely to the words of the Sermon on the Mount, and to pray that peoples and the nations which are at war may also read, learn, and inwardly digest these deathless words. May their import reach into the hearts of all men and of all nations. I offer them as my Christmas message. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

SPEAKER_00:

Franklin D. Roosevelt Christmas greeting to the nation, December twenty fourth, nineteen thirty-nine. One other quote I wanted to share with you all from Benjamin Franklin.

SPEAKER_01:

How many observe Christ's birthday? How few his precepts. Oh, 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments. Apparently, is allowed uh out of a lot of different collections of Franklin's own writings. But you you get the point. When you go back today, think about John Gregory Bork, gallantry in action, right? There's a lot of ways to be gallant in action. I had a commanding officer in the Marine Corps that talked about the fact that there were a lot of different kinds of courage and bravery, not just those in the face of physical danger, but also emotion, emotional, mentally, etc.

SPEAKER_00:

Remember the scripture, right? The wise men and their journey. From a long way away, apparently, especially in those days. Just to see.

SPEAKER_01:

Remember Ephesians, our roles and responsibilities as husband and wife.

SPEAKER_00:

And think about FDR's 1939 message as World War II was just starting.

SPEAKER_01:

There's two thoughts about his message. One is I've heard a gentleman that I have a lot of respect for say this multiple times over the years. I can't imagine that FDR would have been so excited about the welfare society if he could see what it had turned into today. I think there's some people that would argue even in his own lifetime he had some pretty severe reservations after he started to see what it was turning into. But the other is when he talks about realizing that we can't just be grateful for our own good fortune in peace, right? That we've got to look to those other places that are at war.

SPEAKER_00:

That are suffering.

SPEAKER_01:

For whatever reason, as I was reading that today, it struck me, folks, that that we're probably about to be the ones that are at war. We're going to be the ones that are suffering. And there's going to be a lot of people around the world that are pretty excited about that. That celebrate that, that cheer that on, that want to take advantage of that. A lot of people, sadly, inside our own country. That's that's part of the reason we're going to end up in this fight, I think, to begin with. Or it's going to be much worse. It's going to be suffering. Far worse than a war under leftism or Islam. But the point is to stay focused on Christ, to know that there's going to be people who celebrate our pain and our suffering and our sorrow. But to know that Christ has us in hand, that he sees the big picture, that one day, because of him, we're going to get to go home and spend eternity with him and God and heaven where there won't be any more sorrow or sadness or pain or war or suffering or brokenheartedness. And as a pastor, I'll leave you with this as one of our a good pastor, one of my favorites over the years, said, you know, we can either develop that relationship with Jesus Christ before the storm hits, that anchor to our lives, or we can be scrambling for it as the storm's hitting. And so I just I encourage you, just like I'm encouraging myself to do a better job, folks, of really depending on Jesus Christ now. Getting ready now. It's like training for a sporting event. Getting ready now, shedding sweat and blood and tears now, before the game starts, before the storm hits. If you are looking for a family-friendly, middle grade fantasy, kind of along the lines of Narnia or The Hobbit, something that doesn't promote all of the nastiness and trash that we see so much from secular society. And I'm definitely not comparing mine and quality to those two works, folks. Please don't. If you're looking for that, you're going to be disappointed. But I think it's a fun read. I think you enjoy it, and you wouldn't have to worry about so much that a lot of books today put into there for kids that's not really for kids at all. But if you get a chance, there's two books in the series so far. If you check them out, and if you enjoy them, if you'd leave a review online somewhere, that helps immensely. And if you feel like you're getting something out of the podcast each day, uh scripture readings, verses on marriage, the American heritage, and our connection to God and Jesus Christ. If you have five or ten dollars that you can donate to the podcast, be very grateful for that. There's a website, it's at the there's a link at the end of the show notes here where you can click on to set up that monthly donation. And we've also started to put the podcast on YouTube if you prefer to watch it there, listen to it there, or if you have friends that use that more than others.

SPEAKER_00:

So you can check out the podcast on YouTube as well. Hallowed be thy name.

SPEAKER_01:

My kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.

unknown:

Amen.

SPEAKER_01:

God bless y'all. God bless your families, God bless your marriages if you're married. God bless your nation wherever you are around the world listening. God bless America. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.