Crazy Cycle CD (10 Pack)

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

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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.

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

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

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!

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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?

Husbands primarily want to hear ‘respect” talk during conflict. Wives primarily want to hear “love” talk during conflict.

Research and experience prove that men and women see and hear differently. Recognizing these differences and adjusting to them is absolutely necessary for reaching mutual understanding and better communication.

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

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

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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

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.

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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!)

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

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.

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

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).

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Life is too short to fuss and fret over trivial irritations.

“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.“

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

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.

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

Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.

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

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 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.

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

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)

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.

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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)

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?”

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

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