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“Respect is earned.” Have you heard that sentiment before? It’s a fairly popular thought in culture today, even bleeding into the church and our interpretations of passages like Ephesians 5:33: “However, each one of you [husbands] also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Men and women have differing sexual and emotional needs, which I have preached for forty years. But be assured, this does not mean that one does not have sexual needs and the other does not have emotional needs. Differing does not mean nonexistent.
Back before I began sharing across the world the Love and Respect message, based on Ephesians 5:33, we surveyed seven thousand people with the following question: "During a conflict with your spouse, do you feel unloved or disrespected?"
Truth be told, the vast majority of disagreements that arise between husband and wife are what I call disagreements in the gray areas of life. Meaning there is not a clear, black-and-white answer to who is right and who is wrong.
Some claim that because Jesus Christ describes Himself as "the Son of Man" (instead of “the Son of God”) in three of the gospels about Christ's life and ministry (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), this proves he was not the Son of God, and thus not God.
In a survey from Focus on the Family, participants were asked, “What was (and possibly still is) the biggest problem affecting your marriage?” For both men and women the most popular answers by far all dealt with communication. These findings match up with what we have learned at Love and Respect Ministries. Having studied thousands of letters and emails from husbands of wives of both long marriages and newer ones, the common thread that runs through almost all of them is that, in one way or another, the major challenge for the common couple is communication.
In music, a vocal quartet is made up of four different parts or singing styles: alto, soprano, tenor, and base. All four must be included in order for the vocal group to be a quartet. The tenor cannot kick out the bass and replace him with another tenor. The soprano cannot find two more soprano friends and get rid of the alto and tenor. All four parts must be present and fulfilling their roles for the harmonies of their music to sound just right. No part is more important than another; neither is any part unnecessary and would be better off being more like another part.
I always prefer to assume goodwill in my audience. Calling someone goodwilled is not the same as calling them perfect. Clearly all of us are broken, sinful, and capable of mistakes daily. But I believe the vast majority do so with goodwill in their hearts.
Most people hate the sound of their voice when they hear themselves on a voicemail or on the radio or on some other type of recording. They can’t believe they sound as high as they do, or as whiney, or so robotic, with very little reflection in their voice. Like hearing nails scraping across a chalkboard, they absolutely cringe at the sound of their voice. That can’t be me, they think to themselves. Is my voice really that annoying?
There is a principle that my wife, Sarah, and I seek to live by and that we share at our Love and Respect Conferences: I cannot control the outcomes in my spouse; I can only control my actions and reactions to my spouse. In other words, I can no more control what Sarah will say and do and the attitude in which she will say and do it, than she can control what I will say and do and the attitude in which I will say and do it.
Many if not nearly everyone is asking the question "Did God cause the coronavirus? And if He did not directly cause it, why did He allow it?" Of course, some of us are not asking that question since we have settled in our minds to trust Christ in the face of what we don't understand. But do we have a maturing child asking this question? Is a friend throwing this question at us: "Why doesn't God stop this!?"
As you can imagine, I receive a great deal of emails from concerned spouses describing their marital problems. Most times these stories are describing the ways the one writing me feels the other spouse is harming their relationship. Of course, such a viewpoint is only human nature. After all, while it can be difficult for all of us to evaluate our own shortcomings and sins, our spouse’s seem to be highlighted in big, bold letters for us, don’t they?
A well-meaning husband once wrote me: I attended your conference. You have very useful material, however lots of man material and very little godly content. For example, "A wife has one driving need—to feel loved." A man says that! God says, "A wife has one driving need—love God above all. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). What couples need is to dedicate and rely on Jesus, not all this MAN advice that says "when that need is met, he/she is happy." I'm sorry, but without the love of God, there is no happiness.
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