Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

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

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

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?”

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Suppressing negative feelings is not loving, respectful or very wise. Speak up tactfully.

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

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

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.

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

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

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

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

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.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

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.

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.

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.

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

When Jesus said “turn the other cheek,” He wasn’t saying to be passive wimps. He was teaching that physically people can control you but if you turn and give the other cheek, suddenly you’re in control and you’re making the choices.

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.

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

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

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)

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

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

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.

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

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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!)

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.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration or anger, but you always have a choice. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

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

It is crucial for a husband and wife to see that neither one is wrong, but both of them are very different--in body function, outlook and perspective.

Words of Love or Respect must uplift your spouse, edifying- never manipulating him or her.

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

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

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

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.

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 communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

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.

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her 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?

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

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.

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.