The Crazy Cycle In The Workplace - Study Guide (Download)

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

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

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.

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!

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)

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

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

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

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

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 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.

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

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?”

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

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!

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

Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

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

Men are solution oriented, they love to solve problems. They want to be helpful.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

Christian maturity involves a lot of things, but surely it includes knowing how to process your anger.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

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

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

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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.

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.

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.

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.