The 4 Wills of God

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.

Responding to offensive words or actions with your own offensive words and actions is damaging and unproductive.

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

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.”

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.

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

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

[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.

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

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

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Let the Lord change you, but don’t try to change each other.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

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

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?

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

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

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

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.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.

When a wife feels unloved, it can be such a shock to her heart that she is oblivious to her disrespectful reactions toward her husband, though any man watching could see it plainly.

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.

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

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.

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.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

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 you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

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

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

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.

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

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)

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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.

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

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

Thank God for joining you together and for allowing you to trust Him to help you, whatever the issue. God is there for you and expects you to look to Him to keep you together as a team, so ask Him for His help in the smallest of concerns. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

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

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

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.

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

Don’t pressure yourself with perfection. We are going to fail. A righteous man falls 7 times but gets back up.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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

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.

God is good and wants what is best for us.