Category: Relationships

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5 Mistakes Men Make In Marriage

Healthy relationships take work and a willingness to learn and grow.  For men this can be a very challenging thing.  Most men tend to struggle in relationships because we don’t realize some of the mistakes we are making.  Marriage is the closest relationship we have and as men we need to make some big changes in order to have happy, healthy marriages.  Just a quick word to the guys reading this.  Most guys work hard at improving themselves in their work life.  We study, practice, and learn from more experienced people in order to become better at our jobs.  We do the same thing with our hobbies.  Why should it be any different when it comes to the most important relationship in our lives.

So here are 5 mistakes that I have made along with most men.  Now there are probably a lot more mistakes that the ladies reading this can come up with, but that would feel like nagging and most guys would tune that out quickly.  Here are the top 5 things guys can work on to quickly improve their relationship with their wives:

  1. Loving Our Wives Conditionally – This is hard to admit for most guys, because we like to think that we love our wives unconditionally.  The reality is that most men have conditions for their love.  If she performs in the way we like, we express love to her.  When she cleans the house, takes care of the children, cook the food, and run the household then we are happy and love her.  However when things don’t go like we think it should we tend to get angry, frustrated, disappointed and withhold love.  When she does not show us the respect we think we should have we don’t love her the way we should.
  2. Thinking Her Definition Of Intimacy Is The Same As Ours – When men think about intimacy we usually think sex.  This is not the case for our wives.  It’s about an emotional connection, being able to talk about the important stuff going on in her life.  She see’s intimacy as a deep emotional connection, when we take the time to really focus on her and listen without trying to fix things.  For most women the emotional intimacy and the physical intimacy are very much connected.  For men we tend to keep them separate.
  3. Not Encouraging Our Wives Enough – Many wives do a ton of things that go unnoticed.  Running a household, caring for children, preparing food, planning schedules, paying bills working outside the home, volunteering at school or church.  Most of us husbands take all this for granted and don’t thank and encourage our wives nearly enough.  We can’t say it often enough.  When we take the time to notice all the things she does and thank her specifically for them, it sends a message to her that she is valuable, important and treasured.
  4. Not knowing her Love Language – There are five love languages that express love to the people in our lives.  In marriage this is a vital part of developing a close healthy relationship.  Most of us guys don’t even think about how to express love to our wives let alone understanding what her love language is.  We usually speak our own love language to our wives, which may not be her top love language.  So here are the five areas:  Words of Affirmation/Encouragement, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Acts of Service & Physical Touch.  When we take the time to find out which of those are more meaningful to our wives we send a message that we care and want to love her better.  When we actually do it on a regular basis our marriage will improve dramatically.  Remember actions speak louder than words.  To learn more about the Five Love Languages read the book by that title by author Gary Chapman.
  5. Not Building Spiritual Intimacy With Our Wives – If we want our marriages to go from good to great, then we need to bring the spiritual element into our marriages.  Most of us men don’t ever connect with our wives on a spiritual level.  This adds a whole new dimension of intimacy that is missing in most marriages.  When we as men take the lead on spiritual stuff, it sends a message to our wives that we desire to grow with them.  Being on the same page spiritually brings peace & strength to the relationship.  Couples that are spiritually active together rarely get divorced.  This would include things like church attendance, small group participation, praying together, praying for each other daily, doing devotions together, having spiritual conversations attending seminars or classes together, praying with and for your children.  When we take the initiative to lead our families spiritually amazing transformation starts to happen.  This all starts with us making a commitment to grow spiritually ourselves.  We cannot force this on our wives, but we can start with ourselves.

Well guys, I hope this was a helpful start in making adjustments or changes in your marriage relationship.  My next post will be on 5 Mistakes Women make in marriage.

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5 Steps to a Healthy Marriage

This week and gave a speech on healthy marriages at a local business.  I was very impressed that the leader of this organization was investing in his employees by offering helpful information on how to be healthy in all parts of their lives.  They have heard talks about finances, wills and physical health and I was now addressing relational health.

If one area of our lives is out of whack it negatively impacts the other parts of our lives even though we think we can compartmentalize each area of our lives.  When our marriage is hurting, it impacts our emotional state and increases the amount of stress we feel on a daily basis.  That stress impacts our work performance, our parenting skills and our ability to focus and make good decisions.

Marriage is difficult because this is the closest we get to another human being, which brings out all the ugly stuff inside us.  We all bring our picture of marriage to the table.  What we have learned about marriage from our parents, television, movies and friends.  Most of it is not accurate and sets us up for disappointment and failure.  These are the 5 steps I shared with that group that I believe are vital to having a healthy marriage.

  1. Understand & Speak the Right Love Language – We each have a love account, like a bank account that needs to to have regular deposits in it to avoid being overdrawn.  If more is taken out of the account than put in we soon feel empty, hurt and unhappy.  The 5 Love Languages are how we make those deposits.  They are all important, but 1 or 2 are usually more important than others to each person.  We often project our love language on the other person instead of discovering which one is most important to them.  When you understand which language speaks love to your spouse and then work at speaking it through actions the marriage relationship grows stronger and healthier.
  • Words of Affirmation – The way in which we speak to each other either builds up or destroys.  If this is a primary love language words hurt or help even more.
  • Acts Of Service – Actively serving the other person by noticing things that need to be done and doing them before being asked.
  • Receiving Gifts – If this is a primary love language receiving a gift like flowers or even a small token make the person feel like they are valuable and special.
  • Quality Time – Planning time together and where we can focus on just on another.  This communicates to the other person that they are the most important person on the schedule.
  • Physical Touch – Hugs, kisses, holding hands, a touch on the shoulder and sex are some of the ways to speak love to a person with this love language.

The way to identify which ones are most important to you is to ask yourself which ones can I do without and which ones can’t I do without.  If you have not been speaking your spouses love language for a while it will be difficult in the beginning because it will feel somewhat fake.  However the more you do it the better you will become and the more likely your spouse will reciprocate.

2.  Understand & Stop the Fear Dance – The fear dance is the cycle we go through when we have conflict.  I get hurt, I want things to be different or change, I feel my emotions like anger, frustration coming up (Core Fear is touched), I respond usually in an unhealthy way and the same cycle happens with my spouse.  We all have core fears like fear of failure, fear of being inadequate, incompetent, unheard, abandon etc.  When we can understand which core fears we have we can better stop the fear dance and resolve conflict in a healthy way.  To learn more about the fear dance read the book “The DNA Of Relationships” by Gary Smalley.

3.  Understand & Nurture the 3 kinds of Intimacy

  • Emotional Intimacy – This is friendship, we should be best friends with our spouse.  Doing fun things together, sharing what is going on in our lives, being completely open and honest with each other.
  • Spiritual Intimacy – This is connecting on a spiritual level by being in agreement on our beliefs and then doing things together that reinforce those beliefs like going to church together, praying together, reading together, talking about spiritual things together and with others that are like minded.
  • Physical Intimacy – This is when we share our bodies with each other and submit to each other physically.  Knowing how to please the other person.  This is usually where we start in a relationship, but the other two need to come first for this to be healthy.

4.  Understand & Change the Way We Communicate – Communication is vital to a healthy marriage, but communication is not just talking.  Here are a few communication ideas to help improve communication.

  • Really Listen – Most of us don’t really listen.  We make attempts at it, but don’t consistently listen well.  Listening is the most important part of communication, because when we listen well we can avoid misunderstandings and we let the other person know that they are valuable and important to us.  By simply listening, we can improve the health of our marriage instantly.
  • Speaker/Listener technique –  This is a simple way to communicate through conflict.  When someone has an issue they want to talk about they have the floor or the microphone.  Using a pen as the microphone the person explains what the issue is.  The other person can only ask clarifying questions and repeat back what the other person said.  When the person with the floor feels heard they turn over the microphone and the other person can share their side.
  • Be interested, not Interesting – This means that instead of sharing everything about yourself and your day and what you accomplished, you are more interested in what your spouse did and how their day went.  By asking some simple questions and then shutting up and listening you communicate that your spouse is important.
  • Know Your Filter – Men see and hear things much differently than women.  Therefore we always need to make sure that we don’t assume this is what the other person meant.  We also have all had different experiences and circumstances in our lives that cause us to filter things in different ways.  Again, don’t jump to conclusions without asking questions like help me to understand what just happened.

5.  Understand & Practice Forgiveness – No relationship will last very long without practicing forgiveness.  Being quick to admit when we are wrong and humbling ourselves will build a healthy marriage.  Forgiveness is not forgetting, but it is the first step toward forgetting.  When we are healed we tend to forget the previous hurts and don’t keep bringing them back up.  Forgiveness does not mean we don’t have boundaries either.  Sometimes we need boundaries until the other person can show a change in behavior, even though we have forgiven them.

These are some things that have helped my marriage over the last 22 years.  Practice them and I am sure things will begin to improve and become more healthy.  Sometimes we need some help getting started and that is when counseling or mentoring can help.  Meeting with a mentor couple or a counselor or both can help you get on track and start reconciliation.  We offer marriage mentoring at NewPointe Community Church for couples that want to restore and rebuild their marriage.  For more information you can check out this website – Marriage 911.

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Forgiveness and an Amish Boy

Unforgiveness is like cancer, it eats away at our insides and causes all kinds of pain and suffering.  We live in a world that is not perfect.  People let us down, hurt us, disappoint us and sometimes even intentionally cause physical or emotional damage to our lives.  When these things happen to us we always have a choice in how we handle those situations.  It really depends on where our heart is at, as to how we handle these difficult times in our lives.  If our heart or emotional state is healthy and focused on our relationship with God, we tend to handle these situations better.  When we are in communication with God and have the Holy Spirit in us, we can respond in a healthy way.  However if we are not in a good place emotionally and are not focused on God it is very easy to respond in unhealthy ways, which leads to a downward spiral.

About 8 months ago I went through an exercise on forgiveness that I had helped many other people go through.  I decided I should do it myself since I am asking others to do it.  What happened was a surprise to me and has become a defining moment in my spiritual journey.  So here is what happened.

I found some time to be completely alone and uninterrupted and started by connecting with God through prayer.  I asked God to open my mind and my heart to whatever He wanted to do in me.  I asked God to bring to my mind all the people that have hurt me in any way.  Once I had spent some time in prayer and had mentally & emotionally prepared myself, I got out a piece of paper and started writing down the names that came to my mind.  I had done this with other people and some people would only have a few names and others would fill a couple of pages.  The key is that you write down all the names God brings to you in that moment, even if you think you have already forgiven them and even if it seems like it was insignificant.

So I start writing down names, expecting to only have a few because I am a forgiving kind of guy.  To my surprise I nearly filled a full sheet of paper.  The next thing I did was to write beside each name what that person did to me and how it made me feel.  This was the hard part, bringing up all those old thoughts and emotions.  It was tempting to skip through this, but I took my time with each name and took myself back to those times I felt hurt, frustrated and angry.  I could feel some of those same emotions as I thought about what had happened.

One of the biggest surprises on my list was an Amish boy I went to Elementary school with.  He was a year older than me and I don’t remember much about him other than we got into a fight in the boys restroom one day at school.  I don’t remember what we were fighting about, but I do remember how I felt.  With a bunch of my friends watching this Amish boy pinned me to the bathroom floor and laughed at me.  As I squirmed and tried to free myself I heard others laughing as well.  I remember him standing on my ankles and pinning my wrists with his hands.  I had not thought about that incident for a very long time, but it was still there in my mind and in my heart.  I remember everyone else leaving the bathroom after the fight and I was alone in there.  I felt humiliated, angry and weak.  As I walked out of the bathroom I remember breaking a small mirror on the wall.

That memory was buried deep inside me and God brought it out.  It helped me to see how that had created some fears inside of me that had stayed with me all these years.

Once I finished writing out each emotion and circumstance I started to pray through each  person.  I simply prayed that I choose to forgive the person by name and what they did to me and how it made me feel.  I asked God to heal the damaged emotions and help me to release this person and the negative emotions attached to that person.  I thanked God for helping me forgive as He forgave me.

When I finished the last name, I actually felt lighter.  Almost like I had lost some weight.  I felt free and energized.  I spent some time just meditating on God’s goodness, love, acceptance and forgiveness.  What an amazing experience!

I don’t know who God will bring to your mind if you do this exercise, but I do know that there is great freedom and joy when we forgive from the heart.  I hope you will take some time to work through this exercise.  It might be a good idea to do this once a year to make sure you have not taken back what was given to God.  It is almost like a yearly forgiveness checkup.  Sometimes it helps to have someone do this exercise with you.  I encourage you to find a trustworthy person and ask them to pray for you while you do this exercise.

One last thing, when you finish the exercise destroy the paper with the names on it.  That symbolizes that it is finished and the people and emotions no longer are controlling you or attached to you in a negative way.  Forgiveness if the most powerful tool we have to live a healthy, joyful, peaceful life.

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10 Ways to Build Solid Relationships

There is a saying that I love, that I first heard from author and speaker John Maxwell.  “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  As a leader I can never separate leadership from relationships.  Leaders need to develop relational skills in order to lead the people around them.  One of the questions I often ask myself is how likeable are you?  Do people like being around you?  All of us can work on being a better person and improving our relationships with people.  Relationships are messy, yet necessary because we were created for relationships.

In the book of Romans in the Bible I came across ten instructions that Paul gives us that will help us get along with other people.  These instructions come from Romans 12:9-21:

  1. Avoid Hypocrisy – When you say something and then do something else it sends the message that you are not trustworthy.  When you are sincere and genuine and your actions line up with your words, your relationships benefit tremendously.
  2. Be Loyal – Paul calls us to treat each other people like brothers and sisters.  Even though siblings will fight with each other sometimes there is a bond because of being family.  Being loyal means showing kindly affection to those around you.  Supporting and standing up for them in good times and bad.
  3. Give Preference to Others – This means to honor the desires of others above your own.  The more selfish you are the weaker your relationships become.
  4. Be Hospitable – When you look for ways to meet the needs of others it builds trust and friendship.  Being generous with what God has given you instead of holding those things tightly helps you to be more hospitable.  Working at making the people around you comfortable and cared for takes a mindset of wanting to serve others.
  5. Return Good for Evil – What Paul is saying here is to act, don’t react when others hurt you.  Many times your natural tendency is to react with hurtful words or actions when you get hurt.  That only further damages the relationship.  You should not be passive though and need to act by communicating in a loving way how that hurt you.  Proverbs 15:1 says “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
  6. Identify with Others – This means to empathize with others.  To treat others’ needs or victories as your own.  When you can put yourself in their shoes without judging, it shows how much you care.  It also will help you to better understand where they are coming from.
  7. Be Open-minded toward Others – Trying to connect with anyone you speak to takes the ability to be genuinely interested in the other person.  Approach each encounter as an opportunity to learn more about this person and their story.  Ask questions and really listen.
  8. Treat Everyone with Respect – When you treat people with respect it is a compliment to them.  This can be done by how you listen, the non-verbal messages you send and by not being judgmental.  Even if you do not agree with the person or their behavior it is important to show respect and love them unconditionally.  Remember you can’t change anyone, only God can do that.
  9. Do Everything Possible to Keep Peace – This does not mean to avoid conflict, but to work through conflict and to choose wisely which hills to die on.  Paul says, “If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men.”  This means that the decisions we make should lead to forgiveness and reconciliation in our relationships as much as possible.
  10. Remove Revenge from Your Life – This means to let God judge others; you are to love them!

On our own, we cannot do this on a consistent basis.  That is why it is so important to be connected with God, who can give us everything we need to have thriving, healthy relationships.  It starts by making the decision to accept Jesus Christ as the leader of your life and the forgiver of your sins.  After that we have a special connection with God through the Holy Spirit that is available as a constant help to live life to the fullest.  Living life to the fullest means having the best possible relationships in our lives.  Ask God to help today to live out these ten things in all your relationships.  Over time hurts will be healed and hearts will be repaired and peace and joy will be more evident in all your relationships.

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Amazing Lessons From Peter

As a leader, I must constantly be working on myself.  Leader’s that stop growing, quickly start declining and losing influence.  A great example of someone growing as a leader is Peter, one of the 12 disciples that followed Jesus.  Focus and self-discipline provide the foundation for solid leadership.  Peter learned this lesson the hard way.  Over a three and a half year period, God transformed Peter from a cocky, loud influence to a thoughtful, humble leader.  As I read in 1 Peter, one of his letter to the Christian Jews, he gives three directives in this area of focus and self-discipline:

  1. Guard Your Mind – Peter reminds us to put boundaries around what we allow into our minds.  What we allow in will influence us and deceive us.  Filling our minds with truth helps us to guard it from the lies that are all around us.  Peter tells us to remain focused and sober.
  2. Guard Your Hearts – He also reminds us that we need to prevent old patterns from penetrating our hearts.  He warns us about the former lusts, which can not only distract us, but can destroy us.
  3. Guard Your Lifestyle – Peter tells us to pursue holiness.  The only way to do that is to follow and embrace the model Christ gave.  Since God is holy, we should copy what we see Him doing.

Peter also talks a good bit about sacrifice and submission.  He tells us to respect and submit to authorities, regardless of how the authorities might treat those they are over.  He reminds us that God places all people in authority for His plans and His purpose.  Peter reminds us in chapter two about the sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us.  He suffered greatly and died for us.  Here is how Jesus responded to the insults, mockery, physical beatings, false accusations and carrying all our sin:

  1. Did not retaliate, but kept silent
  2. Made no threats
  3. No deceit came from his mouth
  4. Fully entrusted himself to the Father (God)

Peter also does a nice job of addressing husbands and wives.  No home can thrive without functioning according to sound spiritual leadership principles:

  • First he challenged wives to submit to their husbands, even those who do not submit to Christ.
  • When the wife submits even though she opposes her husbands decision, she gives a powerful witness to Christ and brings a special honor to Him.
  • Husbands are called to live with their wives in an understanding way.
  • Husbands are to honor their wives and model submission and service.
  • Husbands are to initiate blessing, rather than retaliate when things go wrong.
  • Husbands and wives need to assume responsibility for the health of their relationships, which means setting the tone.  To set the tone, they should initiate what they want others to do.
    • Get respect by showing respect
    • Get understanding by being understanding
    • Listen well, trying to understand instead of being understood.
    • Get quality time by giving quality time
    • Hears words of affirmation by giving words of affirmation
    • Get served by first serving
    • Receive unconditional love by first giving unconditional loving

He then talks about spiritual gifts.  Peter encourages us to make five observations about our spiritual gifts:

  1. Every believer has at least one spiritual gift. (1 Peter 4:10)
  2. Spiritual gifts are intended to serve people, not bolster our reputations. (v.10)
  3. We use our gifts as stewards or managers, not owners.  (v.10)
  4. God is the source and the sustainer of every gift. (v. 11)
  5. We are to employ our gifts as though we were serving the Lord. (v. 11)

When we fail to use our gifts properly, we are disobedient, the body of Christ (Church) suffers and God is not glorified.

Peter closes his letter by addressing church leaders and encouraging  them to lead well.  He calls church leaders to:

  1. Be a minister to the people by serving them before being served.
  2. Be a mentor of the people by eagerly investing in people and being a good example.
  3. Be a manager of the people by exercising oversight over those entrusted to your care.
  4. Be a model for the people by demonstrating how to live and love.

Peter encourages us to humble ourselves by casting all our cares on God.  Only then does God promise to exalt us.

I hope these thoughts from Peters letter are helpful in your spiritual growth.  I encourage you to go and read 1 Peter for yourself.  I am sure there are other nuggets of gold that may be just what you need.

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4 Principles for Healing Wounded Relationships

Healthy relationships are hard work.  In working with people as a pastor, I have found that one of the biggest contributors to emotional problems, financial problems, marriage problems, work problems and most any problem is broken damaged relationships.  A broken relationship will not heal automatically.  Healing a relationship requires care and investment, just like our physical bodies need care and investment in order to heal a wound.  When we take the time to treat a wound, it minimizes the potential of infection and prolonged pain.  Similarly an investment made to restore a relationship will yield dividends for you in the future.

Here are four principles that illustrate the importance of forgiveness in healing broken relationships:

  1. A Wound Must Be Cleaned – All the impurities need to be removed from the wound.  In a broken relationship all wrong-doing must be confessed and addressed.  Each person needs to put all the cards on the table and admit their part in the brokenness.  Hiding things and only confessing what is already known is like leaving the rust of a nail in the wound and only brushing off the surface.  Healing starts by making a full and complete confession if the fault is yours, and be willing to cancel the debt of the other person.  This should be done as quickly as possible, because infection can set in quickly.
  2. A Wound Must Be Rejoined – If the two sides of a cut are not stitched back together, scar tissue will fill in the gap.  Once scar tissue covers the wound it is no longer possible to rejoin the healthy flesh.  Scar tissue limits movement and can hinder the proper function of body parts.  When people separate and do not communicate, scar tissue begins to form.  It makes it much more difficult to function properly and to grow in a healthy way.  When two people come together and begin to dialog about the real issues, healing can begin and scar tissue is minimized.
  3. A Wound Must Be Nourished – When someone is injured the body sends extra blood flow to the injured area.  That blood flow is needed to provide the nutrients and vitamins necessary to promote healing.  Similarly, healing a broken relationship requires deliberate attention and investment.  A commitment to forgive is a commitment to invest.  Forgiveness is the nutrients our bodies need to heal.
  4. A Wound Must Be Protected – When a wound is healing it is sensitive and needs protection.  The deeper the wound the longer it takes to heal and the more sensitive it is.  In a relationship, just because an offense has been forgiven does not mean trust has been completely restored or that additional stress or pressure can be taken.  a healthy relationship needs to be nurtured delicately.  The wound needs to be cleaned out several times and new bandages applied along the way.

The human bodies ability to heal is an amazing thing.  God created us with this ability to heal when treated properly.  Our wounded emotions can also be healed if treated properly.  True forgiveness is one of the most powerful healing agents for damaged emotions that exists.  Forgiveness is a commitment to put the past behind, to leave it there, and to move on.

So what broken relationships need attention in your life?  What wounds need to be cleaned, rejoined, nourished and protected?  Ask God to help you commit to invest in the relationships that you have whether they are broken or not.  Healthy, vibrant relationships are so important for our overall health.  God made us for relationships and we need to do our part to invest in them and nurture them.

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10 Tips for a Healthy Marriage

Nearly everyone that gets married, goes in wanting to be happy and stay married for the rest of their lives.  So what happens along the way to cause people to end up hating each other or frustrated to the point of divorce?  Why does verbal, physical and emotional abuse happen so often in marriages that started out with so much hope?

Most people that end up getting married, don’t put much work in on the front end.  They may date for a while and many people are now pretending to be married, thinking that is a good way to prepare for marriage.  Unfortunately the results have been dismal.  Couples that live together have a much greater chance of divorce than those that do not.  Couples that do not go through some pre-marital mentoring or counseling have a much higher chance of not making it.  So for people that are thinking about getting married, go get some help in preparing for this lifelong commitment.  Why wouldn’t you get some training for the biggest relationship commitment you will ever make.

For those that are already married and maybe did not put a lot of work in at the beginning, it’s not too late.  Marriages can be improved dramatically with some work and a different perspective.  Here are some tips or thoughts on how to build a happy marriage:

  1. Change your expectations to desires – Marriage is not so much about you, but about serving and loving your spouse well.  If you are looking at your husband or wife to meet all your needs and make you happy, you are heading toward failure and disappoint.  No human being can meet all our needs and make us happy.  Only God can do that.  Many times we put too high of expectations on our spouse and then are upset when they don’t live up to that.  Instead of expecting certain behavior, change your mindset to desiring certain behavior.  When you see it happen it is more meaningful.  That shift in thinking can change your marriage.
  2. Learn to love well – To love well, a person must understand what speaks love to their spouse.  If you do not understand what is meaningful and special to your spouse, you can be doing the wrong things and actually be hurting your marriage.  Gary Chapman wrote a book called the “Five Love Languages”.  He describes 5 ways of communicating love to another person.  Those languages are; Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Gifts and Quality Time.  Everyone has one or two of those that are more meaningful than others.  Find out what your spouses language is and what yours is and then sit down and talk about it with your spouse.
  3. Focus on growing yourself, not changing your spouse – The more you try to change your spouse the worse it usually gets.  The only thing you have control over is yourself.  When you focus on problems or the shortcomings of your spouse, you are no longer working on your own issues or growing closer to God.  Seek out a mentor or someone that can help you work on your own issues.
  4. Deepen your relationship with God – To have a happy marriage, it will take more than what you have on your own.  When you develop your relationship with God, He gives you strength, courage and wisdom you can’t get on your own.  When you grow spiritually, you grow relationally with others as well.
  5. Bring God into your Marriage – Spiritual intimacy in a marriage relationship is one of the biggest keys to happiness and contentment in marriage.  Making God central in your marriage builds a solid foundation.  Praying together, going to church together, going to small group together, reading the Bible & devotions together and having spiritual conversations together will build that intimacy.  If your spouse is not where you are at spiritually, don’t force this on them.  Instead pray silently for them regularly and demonstrate your faith by loving them well and serving them as best you can.
  6. Build Emotional Intimacy – This is all about being best friends.  Connecting with each other through meaningful conversations, doing fun things together and just hanging out.  This usually happens through the dating process, but often slows down after the marriage.  Start dating again and work at becoming friends again.
  7. Prioritize Physical Intimacy – This area of marriage often get neglected as life gets busy.  Children, work, family functions and children’s activities can keep married people from having enough physical intimacy.  Take time to plan for this if needed.  God designed sex for marriage for a reason.  It was meant to increase closeness and intimacy.  It is a way of serving each other and surrendering yourself to the other person.  Physical intimacy is much better when the emotional and spiritual intimacy are doing well.
  8. Always believe the best about your spouse – When you always think the best about your spouse instead of assuming the worse, you are more likely to be happily married.  Trust is essential in marriage.  Honesty and openness in marriage leads the way to trust.  Connecting emotionally, spiritually and physically helps to deepen trust and belief in your spouse.  When your first response is to believe the best instead of assume the worse, it leads to a better line of thinking.  Less suspicion and more trust.  When trust is broken though, boundaries need to be put into place in order to re-establish trust.
  9. Listen  – Most people are really poor listeners.  When it comes to marriage it can get even worse.  If you will simply work at becoming a better listener, your marriage will begin to improve.  Listening takes more than just paying attention.  It means to actually try to understand what is being said and being able to repeat it back.  It means you follow through on what is discussed.  In other words listening needs to be active, letting your spouse know you are truly interested and want to understand and then acting on what you hear.  First trying to understand before being understood leads to good listening.
  10. Think Team – Your on the same team not on opposite sides.  Team mates need to communicate well with each other and work together through whatever problems come your way.  Problem solving becomes a joint effort instead of one sided.  To function as a team you need to know your role and understand how you best contribute to the success of the marriage.  The approach should always be we not me.

These ten things are not the only things that help build a solid marriage, but they can get you started.  Marriage takes work to be successful.  A selfish person does not make a very good husband or wife.  Pride and arrogance leads to destruction.  So if your marriage is a mess or struggling along, humble yourself and get some help.  If your marriage is doing well and you have worked through some struggles, then you need to help others work on their marriages.

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Loving Well Part 2

With Valentines Day just around the corner, love is on most peoples mind right now.  Whether married or single, people are born with the need to be loved and to love.  If an infant does not receive love through touching and caring they do not develop properly.  I believe that does not change as we get older.  If we don’t experience unconditional love, we do not develop properly emotionally.  We also cannot love other people well if we do not feel loved ourselves.

Unfortunately we live in a broken world, where there is no perfect love.  As humans we all fall short in this area of life.  We may have our moments, but in the long run all of us struggle to love perfectly.  I cannot love my wife on my own, only with the help of God can I love her the way Christ loved the church.  In 1 John 4:17-21 we hear a clear message about love:

“God is love.  When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us.  This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day-our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s.  There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life-fear of death, fear of judgment- is one not yet fully formed in love.  We, though, are going to love-love and be loved.  First we were loved, now we love.  He loved us first.  If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar.  If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see?  The command we have from Christ is blunt:  Loving God includes loving people.  You’ve got to love both.”

So God has shown us the way in which to love and has called us to now love other people that way.  When God is living in us, His love shines through us.  He gives us the strength to love someone that is unlovable.  The way in which we love is evidence of our relationship with God.

So what does loving well look like?  It is a daily challenge for us to love well.  We are tested constantly through difficult people and circumstances.  That is why it is so important for us to be growing closer to God each day.  I know for me, when I start to let my relationship with God slip, I start to fail many of the love tests that come my way.  I tend to have a shorter fuse and be less patient with the people around me.

To read about the way of love click here

Loving well takes a mindset and an attitude of humility and meekness.  Most people struggle with the idea of being humble and meek, but listen to what God has to say about those qualities:

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Proverbs 11:2

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  Philippians 2:3-4

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”  Matthew 5:5

It takes great strength and courage to be a man or women of humility and meekness.  It is not a sign of weakness but of great strength.  To love well a person must be humble and meek.  Meek means to be gentle, patient and submissive.  Those qualities are rare these days, but in order to love well they are needed.  So here are my closing thoughts on Loving Well:

  • We can’t love other people, without God’s love living in us
  • Love begins with humility and meekness
  • Every day we go through love tests, which either increase our capacity to love or decrease our capacity to love, it’s our choice.
  • Fear cannot co-exist with love
  • Love is not an emotion, it is a choice and an attitude.  It is a way of life.

So here is the challenge – Choose to love well, Choose to love God, Choose to love people.

My heart is melting for you babe xx


Creative Commons License photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography(find me on FB

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Love Well

I’ve been reading through the Message Bible this year. I have read the entire Bible in this version and am doing it again because I find myself drawn in by this version of the Bible. It is easy to read and I find myself reading large portions in one sitting. Yesterday I started reading the book of Philippians, but only got through one chapter. A portion of Paul’s prayer for the Philippians really jumped out at me and challenged me. Here it is, Chapter 1 verses 9 & 10:

“So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush.”

I can’t get this idea of loving well out of my mind. Lot’s of questions have run through my mind. How well do I love? How do I love well? What does he mean by love appropriately? Why should I use my head to test my feelings? Love is a word that has been used a lot and it’s meaning has been confused in my opinion. For many people the idea of loving well is somewhat confusing and intimidating. Many of the people I talk too and interact with struggle with this idea of loving well. There are so many struggling, broken relationships today that to love well is almost uncommon.

I don’t have time to go very deep on this thought, but I want to share some ideas I have on how to love well. These ideas may connect with you for your marriage relationship, your parenting relationship, or other relationships you currently are struggling in or are wanting to do better. There is a lot more to loving well, and none of us will ever love perfectly, but all of us can love better.

  • To love well, we must admit our inadequacy – What I mean by that is none of us know how to make intimate relationships work. We might know some things that work, but we are inadequate on our own to love well all the time. So say it with me, I don’t know what I am doing!
  • To love well, we must be humble – Pride destroys relationships, humility heals relationships. Humility is the secret of blessing and intimacy. In humility we think about our selves less and those close to us more. In humility we look to serve those around us without expecting anything in return. In humility we realize we need help from God in order to love well.
  • To love well, we must trust – Without trust no relationship can last. Trust is about always looking and believing the best about a person. Trust can only happen if I know who I am and who I am not. Trust leads to deeper intimacy, and also the potential for deeper hurt. Trust means I will open my heart and not close out people. Trust means never looking back and bringing up the things that are behind me. Trust does not mean I allow people to continue to hurt me or take advantage of me.
  • To love well, we must forgive – I know of no relationship that last over time that does not have to give and receive forgiveness. As humans we hurt each other, our natural tendency is to be selfish. When we are quick to forgive, we do not allow bitterness and anger the time to take root. If we are slow to forgive emotions come out of us that hurt and damage us and others. Forgiveness allows us to love well for the long haul.
  • To love well, we must persevere – Loving people is not easy. Patience and persistence are vital to loving well. Love never gives up. Through the most difficult of times we can love well if we have a long-term perspective. Loving the unlovable may seem impossible at times, yet to love well, we must love to the end. As mentioned earlier we can only do this with the power and strength that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ. He is perfect love and he can give us what we need to love someone for the long haul.
  • To love well, we must grow – When we stop growing we often stop loving well. Whether it is spiritual growth, emotional growth, intellectual growth or even physical health. When we stop learning, growing and changing our love deteriorates and declines. If I find myself struggling to love the people around me as I should, I start to spend more time with God, I read more, I pray more, I exercise more, I schedule more one-on-one appointments, I talk to my life mentors. Just like a tree, to be healthy and strong it must keep growing. It’s roots go deeper to find more nutrients and water. It’s branches grow thicker to support the additional growth. We need to find ways to have our roots go deeper and our branches grow thicker in order to continue to love well.

I could come up with some more, but this is a great start. How well do you love? What would your spouse say? What would God say?

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10 Ways to Build Solid Relationships

How do you lead through relationships? John Maxwell has been quoted saying “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Leadership cannot be separated from relationship. In order to accomplish anything of significance it takes people and healthy relationships in order to bring lasting results. By developing good relational skills a leader can get much more done. In Romans 12:9-21 Paul gives us ten instructions on how to build solid relationships:

  1. Avoid hypocrisy – be sincere and real, walk the talk (v. 9)
  2. Be loyal – treat others like brothers and sisters (v. 10)
  3. Give preference to others – honor the desires of others above your own (v.10)
  4. Be hospitable – look for ways you can serve and meet the needs of others (v. 13)
  5. Return good for evil – Don’t retaliate when others hurt you, hold your tongue (v.14)
  6. Identify with others – Celebrate with others, show compassion to others (v.15)
  7. Be open-minded toward others – Connect with people by being more interested in them than yourself (v. 16)
  8. Treat everyone with respect – This shows you value them as a person (v. 17)
  9. Do everything possible to make peace – do your best to resolve conflict (v.18)
  10. Remove revenge from your life – Let God judge others; you love them (v.19-21)