Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

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

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)

You both forgive for one simple but profound reason: because you know Christ has forgiven you!

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

She’s not wrong for not being male. He is not wrong for not being female. When you put pink and blue together, you get purple, the color of royalty; the color of God. Together, a husband and wife reflect God’s image.

[Husbands] as the church places her burdens on Christ, so a woman needs to place her burdens on her husband. When she shares with you, don’t assume she is asking you to solve the problem. Ask your wife, “Do you want a solution or a listening ear?”

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

The more we are upset at something, the wiser it is to let twenty-four hours pass before responding.

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control.

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

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.

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.

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.

You must distinguish between “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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!

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 possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted 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.

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.

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”?

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

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.

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)

God’s commands are there to help us, not to hinder us or hold us back as male and female.

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.

The woman absolutely needs love, and the man absolutely needs respect. It’s as simple- and as difficult- as that.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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!)

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

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.

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)

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

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.

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

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

Just because you may feel unloved or disrespected does not mean your spouse is sending that message.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Do not live by the standards of Hollywood; trust what God says in His Holy Word.

Wives, to energize your husband do an activity with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, without talking.

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

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

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.

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