The Illumination Project Journal (10 Pack)

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

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

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

A husband may deserve contempt, but that doesn’t win him any more than harshness and anger wins the heart of a woman.

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

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

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.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.

His love motivates her respect. Her respect motivates his love.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

A wife has one driving need--to feel loved. When that need is met she is happy. A husband has one driving need--to feel respected. When that need is met he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. Love and Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily and biblically.

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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.

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

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.

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

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.

Your position in Christ is what counts, not your less-than-perfect performance.

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

The key to motivating another person is meeting their deepest need, especially during conflict.

We easily see what is done to us before we see what we are doing to our mate.

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)

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

A wife has one driving need: to feel loved. When that need is met, she is happy. A husband has one driving need: to feel respected. When that need is met, he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy with conflict.

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

Since it is easy to focus on the negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or Respect.

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?

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

Mutual understanding, not communication, is the key to a healthy marriage relationship.

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

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.

When one of you makes a mistake, control any anger you may feel and trust God completely, no matter what happens.

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

Parenting is a faith venture. As we parent “unto Christ” we reap God’s reward, “knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Eph. 6:8 NKJV)

We can all have moments of anger, but this does not mean we have to lose control and sin.

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

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

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

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for Jesus Christ. God is using your spouse to bring you an eternal reward.

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.

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

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

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

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

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

There is a discrepancy between who we want to be and see ourselves to be and how we actually sound in voice and writing. But with self-reflection and honesty, we can turn the corner and improve our communication. We need only evaluate what we are about to communicate.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

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

We fool ourselves into thinking the other person causes us to be the way we are. They really don’t! But if we lock into that idea, we become helpless, hopeless victims.

Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like it getting up. Because we do what we don’t feel like doing, does that make us hypocrites? No, it’s a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity.

The moment we cry to Him for help, He is already pleased. He gives us strength to love our children.

When you come home after you have been apart, the first few moments of reconnecting will set the tone for the rest of the evening.

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

We all need to wrestle with the spiritual truth that God is good. If you don’t believe God is good, you won’t trust His word. If you don’t trust His word, you will find excuses to ignore His commands.

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

Always remember that Pink and Blue have different wiring, different preferences. Assume your spouse has goodwill toward you, no matter what. Both of you can be right, while being different.

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.

She’ll feel at peace with you when you let her vent your frustrations and hurts and don’t get angry and close her off.

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

To build a lasting legacy, use proven wisdom that you glean from the Lord.

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

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

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