Respectfully Yours - Leader's Guide

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)

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

Your wife feels you are open with her when you discuss financial concerns, possible job changes or ideas for your future.

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.

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

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

When we speak before we think, we widen the chances the other person(s) will be notably hurt, frustrated, confused, angry, fearful, or offended by something we’ve communicated.

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

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

His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

“Respect is a man’s deepest value. I have had numerous men tell me, ‘I would rather live with a wife who respected me but did not love me than live with a wife who loved me but did not respect me.’ These men are not saying that they are indifferent to love. They know they need love, but they need to feel respected even more than they need to feel loved.“

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

This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his 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.

[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?”

It’s hard to realize that we would never act around our business associates the way we act around our spouse.

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

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

Your husband knows you value his friendship when you tell him you like him and you show it (he knows you love him, but he often wonders if you really like him).

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

When you relinquish an offense, you need to send that offense somewhere. So follow Jesus’ example and release it to your heavenly Father.

Your words reveal your heart.

Mistakes can’t be undone, but they can be forgiven.

You speak lovingly or respectfully no matter how your spouse may speak to you in return. Your spouse is not the reason--good or bad--why you speak unconditional words of love or respect. God is the reason, and as you depend on Him, you will become increasingly able to speak lovingly and respectfully to your spouse.

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

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.

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

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

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!)

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

Could you be facing a crisis in faith more than a crisis in your marriage?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

“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 are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

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

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

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.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

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

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

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.

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

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

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.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

Unconditional respect means we confront their wrongdoings respectfully. We do not become uncivil because they are. Who they fail to be does not determine who we will be.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.