Love & Respect Live Conference Notebook

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

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

The mature one in the marriage seldom moves second.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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).

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

Your marriage is a test of your devotion to Christ.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

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

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)

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 you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

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

Thank the Lord for all the trouble-free moments in which you and your spouse enjoy Him, each other, your family, your ministry and life as a whole. Ask Him for the strength to accept your measure of trouble, and the wisdom to deal with the annoyances and irritations by loving and respecting each other with new commitment. (You may also want to pray about troubles at work, at church, with the children…) “But those who marry will have trouble in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28)

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.

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

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

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

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

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

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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.

[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.

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.

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

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.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have to become proactive, rather than just trying to stop the reactive.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Thank the Lord for the goodwill each of you has toward the other. Ask Him for strength to give each other the benefit of the doubt during moments when someone’s goodwill seems to be lacking. “He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it.” (Proverbs 11:27)

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

“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.“

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!

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

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)

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.

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

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

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

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!

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

Marriage is a tool and a test to allow God’s will to be revealed in our lives.

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

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

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

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.

[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?”

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 is good and wants what is best for us.

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

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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.

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

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

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.