Conference Notebook - Digital Download (Old)

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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

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

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

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

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

If you are seeking positive change in your marriage, you will need to make a positive change in your attitude and actions.

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.

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!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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)

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.

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

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

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.

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

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

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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

When your wife comes to talk to you, listen to her. Realize she is coming to you because you matter more to her than anyone else. She has certain emotional needs and only you can meet them. Sometimes she may say things that don’t make sense to you and she is apt to misspeak and exaggerate when she is upset, but don’t put her down. Instead, listen to her heart. Give her a chance to express her concerns and, as she does so, don’t try to fix her. Don’t give her your solutions unless she asks for them.

He will feel appreciated when you disagree with him only in private and honor his authority in front of the kids.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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

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

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.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Husbands, to energize your wife give her face-to-face time, allowing her to talk and share her feelings.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

When a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation.

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.

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

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

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.

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

[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?”

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

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

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