Respectfully Yours - Leader's Kit

Whether visiting a prison, feeding the hungry, giving the thirsty a drink or speaking a word of love or respect, everything is to be done to and for Christ.

Marriage is a test of how you unconditionally love and respect your spouse as you obey, honor, and please the Lord.

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

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.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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

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

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

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

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

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

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.

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

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!

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

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

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

A strong woman of dignity puts on respect out of her love and reverence for Jesus Christ. She trusts that His word not only protects and empowers her, but also rewards her with incomprehensible eternal blessings.

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.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

Your hunger for God can create an appetite in your children.

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.

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.

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

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

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

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.

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)

Often the apparent issue isn’t the real issue; the real issue is always a matter of love or respect.

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.

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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

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!)

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

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

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

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

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

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.

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.

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.

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

In the ultimate sense you marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship with Jesus Christ.

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?”

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.

In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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

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

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 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.

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

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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.

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.

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

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.

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.

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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

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

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.

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

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

If we subscribe to the belief that because we are equal we are the same, then we’re going to expect our spouse to respond the way we do.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

“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.

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.

If you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use thankful words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.

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.

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

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.

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.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

When others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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)

I often stress that one of the greatest rewards any persevering spouse can have is being a good example and influence on the children in the family.

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.