The Illumination Project Journal

Your spouse can affect you, but your spouse does not control you.

Assume goodwill about the person you are in conflict with.

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.

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

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

Your wife will feel esteemed when you speak highly of her in front of others.

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

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

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?

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!

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.

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.

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

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.”

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

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

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

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.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

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

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

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

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It is hard to be negative while being thankful.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Unconditional respect is as powerful to him as unconditional love is to her.

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)

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.

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.

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

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.”

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

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.

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.

We are equal but we are not the same.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Your words reveal your heart.

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.

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

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.

Each of you must focus on what God is calling you to do toward your spouse. Do not focus on what you think God is calling your spouse to do toward you.

Your spouse has a need only you can fill.

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.

Will we decide how we see God based on our circumstances, or will we see our circumstances in light of how we view God?

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

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Do you give yourself grace and your spouse judgment?

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

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.

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

It’s so easy to dismiss our spouse as childish because we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do.

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

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

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.

Love and Respect is a faith venture, not a formula.

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’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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

“With eyes of faith, envision Jesus standing just beyond the shoulder of your spouse and listening to every word you speak in every conversation, pleasant or tense. When you speak lovingly or respectfully to your spouse, you are speaking to Christ. Your spouse just happens to be there too.” This truth has sanctified the lips of many. Instead of giving their spouse a verbal whipping or choking on the idea of saying anything positive, now some spouses are motivated to speak words of unconditional love or respect.

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