Building Blocks Study Guide

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There is a plan to parent God’s way, even when our children may seek to go their own way at time. The secret is to follow this plan regardless. When you do, I believe you succeed in His eyes.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When a husband chooses to do or say something loving, and that includes saying, ‘I’m sorry for coming across in an unloving way,’ he energizes his wife. When a wife decides to express herself respectfully, and that includes apologizing for her disrespectful attitude, she energizes her husband.

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!

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

You may believe that the careless, unloving or disrespectful words you speak are because your spouse is causing you to speak this way, but Jesus says that it is coming out of your heart.

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

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.

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

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.

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

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

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).

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.”

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

A husband may deserve contempt, but that doesn’t win him any more than harshness and anger wins the heart of a woman.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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).

When the wife flatly says her husband will have to earn her respect before she gives him any, she leaves the husband in a lose-lose situation. Now he is responsible for both love and respect in the relationship. He must unconditionally love his wife and earn her respect.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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.

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.

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

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

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