The Illumination Project

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

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

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.

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.

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

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

A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.

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.

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.

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

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

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

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

As strong and powerful as marriage bonds can become, our deepest dependency must be on the Lord, not another human being.

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

Unconditional love or respect is never wasted. Hang onto this promise: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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 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 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.

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.

The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

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

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.

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

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

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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 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.

Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

“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.“

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

[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 are equal but we are not the same.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean the other person is offensive.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?