The 4 Wills of God
Should you take the job? Quit the job? Begin a relationship? End a relationship? Move? Plant roots? How do we find God’s will for life’s big decisions? There is a starting point to discovering God’s Will for your next decision and for your entire life. Discover the freedom you’ve been searching for, and then, like Emerson, you’ll help others find that freedom too.
The Four Wills of God
The Way He Directs Our Steps and Frees Us to Direct Our Own
Discovering God's Will
Emerson Eggerichs believes there is a clear answer to finding God’s will. The Bible itself reveals the clue–a secret hidden in plain sight.
Before launching his Love & Respect marriage ministry with his wife Sarah, Emerson was a senior pastor for nearly 20 years in East Lansing, Michigan. Before that, Emerson and a friend ran a free counseling center called “The Open Door” in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As Emerson navigated his career he found both he and the people he was counseling were wrestling with big decisions and knowing if that decision was really what God wanted. Immersing himself in God’s word for over 30 hours a week for 19 years, he discovered simple, clear truths that set him and many others free.
Unlocking Freedom
There is a starting point to discovering God’s Will for your next decision and for your entire life. Begin here to read stories of people in the same situations you face today. You’ll be able to discover the freedom you’ve been searching for, and then, like Emerson, you’ll help others find that freedom too.
Read What Others Are Saying About The Four Wills of God!
It was amazing, God anointed it and 6 women made commitments to the first Will of God; Salvation. I just had to tell you and thank you.
Teacher - Rescue Mission
...I recently read The Four Wills of God and I just felt like I should let you know it changed my life...your book helped me see that I couldn't separate certain aspects of God's universal will for my life from His specific will.
Pastor
James
The 4 Will's of God was so good! I teach at the ( . . . ) Women and Children's Rescue Mission. I taught tonight and I taught your 4 Wills message from the TV show that you shared. Praise God! It was amazing, God anointed it and 6 women made commitments to the first Will of God; Salvation. I just had to tell you and thank you.
...I recently read The Four Wills of God and I just felt like I should let you know it changed my life...your book helped me see that I couldn't separate certain aspects of God's universal will for my life from His specific will. In acknowledging and repenting of this I feel as if a door has been opened for me personally and in ministry. God used your book to remind me of some simple truths in a way that I needed to hear them...this is the first time in a long while where I have felt as I did in those early exciting days when I first surrendered to God's unique will for my life. For the first time in a while I feel the adventure of following God is back. I can't wait to see what's next. Thank you for helping me find this again.
I want to thank you for the amazing book The 4 Wills of God!!!!! My entire life I struggled with wanting to know and follow God's will for my life. When I was younger, I always thought there was a perfect will, a perfect life plan, a perfect wife, etc. In 2000 I was doing a part time speaking ministry and teaching school part time - both grew to where I had to choose one or the other. I felt God distinctly letting me know it was up to me to choose either one I wanted. I chose teaching. Your book was a confirmation to me of what God has already been teaching me. I love that it is a lesson that can be explained in 2-3 minutes (I have already shared that with others) and that you also go more in depth in the book. I struggled for many years because I had let lustful thoughts gain control over my life. I realize now that often clouded my spiritual vision of how God wanted to use me. Many blessings to you!!!!!!
Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is an internationally known public speaker on the topic of male-female relationships. Based on over three decades of pastoring, counseling and study of biblical and scientific research, Dr. Eggerichs and his wife Sarah developed the Love and Respect Conference which they present to live audiences around the country.
About Love & RespectProduct Quotes
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)
Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?
Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.
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.
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!
When we feel crippling discouragement by the sinful choices and outcomes of our kids, we must not let this permanently deter us from parenting God’s way.
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)
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.
As a husband, if you can grasp that you don’t always have to solve your wife’s problems, you will take a giant step toward showing her empathy and understanding.
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)
Avoid like the plague trying to punish each other as a means of “motivation.” Christ-followers instinctively know that this destroys any opportunity to act out of reverence for Christ. In all marital issues, love and reverence for Christ must be our primary motivation.
We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.
As you pray together, you will truly learn to love and respect together.
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.
To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.
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.
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.
Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.
Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times from one degree to another.
No matter what your struggle- criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, harsh words- learning to communicate the Love and Respect way can help you make crucial changes and build the kind of relationship that God blesses.
Being friendly to her man is one of the most effective things a woman can do to strengthen her marriage.
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.
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.
[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?
Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.
Words of Love and Respect must include thankfulness spoken to or about your spouse; don’t fixate on weaknesses and faults.
When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.
We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.
Don’t label each other as bad because you differ on how you solve your troubles.
Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.
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.
His love blesses regardless of her respect; her respect blesses regardless of his love.
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.
The parent-child relationship is as easy, and as difficult, as love and respect.
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.
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.
A major step toward a happy marriage is accepting differences and working them out with love and respect.
Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.
When parents genuinely trust and follow the Lord and His ways, their faith spills over onto the children.
We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.
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 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.
Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.
[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?”
Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.
God is not trying to trick you or mess with you. Trust that He wants to reveal Himself to you just as much as He wants to reveal Himself to the world.
In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.
Wives, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your husband not only back to you, but to God. Husbands, you never know: The way you handle this [conflict] might bring your wife not only back to you, but to God. (1 Corinthians 7:16)
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.
It is so easy to draw wrong conclusions about a spouse’s character and motives due to an occasional flare-up or silly comment.
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.
“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.“
One thing to remember in this culture is if we say something complimentary towards one gender, we aren’t saying something against the other.
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)
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.
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.
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.
Focus on the positive in the midst of the negative, and the Energizing Cycle will keep right on humming.
Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.
Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).
It’s crucial to communicate with the right tone of voice and the right expression on your face.
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.
“Living happily ever after” means knowing how to deal with the imperfect parts of life.
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!
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.
[Women], your self-love cannot be derived from your husband’s love. It can affect it, but it does not determine it.
It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.
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.
No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.
The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)
A man has a natural, inborn desire to go out and “conquer” the challenges of his world – to work and achieve.
God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!
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.
To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.
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.
Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions).
Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.
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.
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.
This is the Rewarded Cycle: His love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.
You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”
Women give a report to build rapport. Men bond through shoulder-to-shoulder activities without talking.