Conference Notebook - Digital Download (Old)

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 have two ears and one mouth; use them proportionately.

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

When there is confusion, I try to refrain from attacking another for not listening carefully (which may not be the case). Instead, I take a run at communicating again, but more clearly.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

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

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.

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)

Assuming goodwill can be revolutionary in relationships.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

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.

We are worth Jesus to the Father.

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

[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.

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

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

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

“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.“

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

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

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.”

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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

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

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

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

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).

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

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

Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.

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.

Do you bow to the influence of Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Do you seek to understand or only to be understood?

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

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

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.

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

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