Love and Respect Coaster (6) Set

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

Be quick to listen and understand and you have a much better chance of being understood.

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

You can be right but wrong at the top of your voice.

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

Your spouse can have a need that you don’t have and that’s okay.

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed, “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25).

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

Before hitting send, ask yourself, "Have I listened carefully and understand the exact issue on the table?"

We blame people for the bad things we do, but take credit for the good things we do.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

Refuse to let evil turn you into a contemptuous and hateful person.

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

We have discovered that as women motivate their man God’s way, men are energized to love them better. It doesn’t matter if your marriage is good or seems like there is no hope. We have seen God move in powerful ways even when things looked hopeless.

Marital researchers agree that a huge percentage of communication problems between husband and wife are due not to what is said but to how it is said – the attitude and tone of voice.

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

Respect for the husband is just as important as love for the wife.

Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

Words of wisdom for all husbands and wives are these: We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

As a wife, if you can start to understand how important your husband’s work is to him, you will take a giant step toward communicating respect and honor, two things that he values even more than your love.

It’s true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It’s also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

You’re the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s deepest need for love and respect. After all, you alone are married to your spouse.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

Fight like a loving man and a respectful woman. Fight fair.

Trust God when the “why’s” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

Getting married reveals, usually sooner than later, an incontestable fact: your spouse cannot possibly meet all your needs and desires

When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

Your husband knows you appreciate his desire to protect and provide when you praise his commitment to provide for you. You empathize when he reveals his male mindset about position, status, or rank at work.

Our research shows that couples who pray together are more apt to reap all kinds of benefits, including better and more frequent communication, going on “dates” more frequently and having sex more frequently.

The difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful ones keep getting up and dealing with the issues.

Most marriages will succeed when obeying the command to Love and Respect.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

Always try to look at your spouse the way Jesus does.

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

When you’re truly Christ-centered, instead of child-centered, you will be a more effective parent in the long run.

The Lord made women (Pink) and men (Blue) with differences, and He expects us to recognize and deal with those differences in a loving and respectful way.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

Accidental sparks (unwise remarks) ignite and fuel a fire, and vroom goes the Crazy Cycle.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

So I encourage every husband and wife to commit to the Jesus Way of Talking. Instead of allowing the stress of the situation to control you, you can say to yourself, “Because I love the Lord and I know that He rewards every good word, I am going to be truthful even if my spouse is not. I will also be uplifting, forgiving, thankful and scriptural in my speech because my ultimate goal is to please the Lord. Whatever my spouse’s weaknesses or bad habits might be, I will not let them cause me to sin with my lips.”

In your marriage be the first to “seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11)

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.