Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

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

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 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.

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.

Your words reveal your heart.

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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)

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.

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

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

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

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

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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

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

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

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

To stay the course in speaking words of Love and Respect, keep your heart in Scripture, trusting in and talking about His promises to help you.

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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.

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 others do not respond to our communication, we need to look first at our communication style. Is the other person incapable of hearing what we have to say? Or are we abrupt, brusque, and curt?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

“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.“

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

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

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.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

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

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.

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

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

Holding back your love or respect will just keep the Crazy Cycle spinning away, but being mature and making the first move could slow it down.

I have concluded that those of us in the church who believe we have the Truth are not using the whole truth. A crucial part of God’s Word has been completely ignored, or perhaps simply gone unnoticed, when it has been there right under our noses the whole time! Many Christian spouses know Ephesians 5:33 and can at least paraphrase it. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves, and wives are to respect their husbands. But is anyone really listening? Perhaps the first step to better communication between husband and wife is to hear what God’s Word clearly says. --Emerson

“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.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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.

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).

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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.

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