Crazy Cycle CD

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

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

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.

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

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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’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?

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

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

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.

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

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

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

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.”

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

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)

Share what God is saying to your heart, not what you think He needs to say to your mate.

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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.

It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.

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)

You have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

We get on the Crazy Cycle because without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Positive changes flood a relationship immediately when both husband and wife cancel the blame game!

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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

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.

Though the end can be worthy (to be loved and respected), when each uses unholy means (unloving and disrespectful words and actions), it will not achieve those ends. We must treat others as we expect them to treat us. To deny this makes us arrogant or fools, or both.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

If husbands and wives are to understand the Love and Respect Connection, they must realize that they communicate in code. And the problem is, they don’t know how to decipher the messages they send to one another.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

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

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

Stay the course regardless of the child’s respect and obedience. This is the Family Rewarded Cycle: a parents love unto Christ regardless of the child.

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.

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

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

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 are equal but we are not the same.

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

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.

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

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

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

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

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.

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.

Can you begin to trust that God feels love for you even when you don’t feel that love?

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

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

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

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.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.