Many of the controls that we are accustomed to have changed. We are not waking up at the same time, our jobs are in question, our children’s sporting events have been canceled, there are few places of worship to attend, and the list goes on. As a result,
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Lately, I have been analyzing my own marriage. I have been looking at key components that have enabled us to connect at a very high level for the last 26 years.
One of those components involves a spirit of learning that has been present at almost every stage of our marriage.
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Do you and your spouse have time together every day or at least 5-6 days a week? For my wife and I, that time is between 9-11 pm. We are not always talking, but we are at least together reading, vegging, watching something wholesome, or sometimes just sleeping.
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By far, our most comprehensive resource for the couple in need is our Marriage Bundle:
Our Marriage Bundle includes the following:
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I admit. I am a command man.
There are very few things that I am a part of where I am not in charge or, very soon, asked to help in a big way.
If there are 30 people in a room, I have noticed that I have a way of helping to determine the topic of conversation or the mood of the room.
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I am actually surprised at how the smallest of changes can have a dramatic affect upon our lives and relationships.
It is so common to have couples come to me that are heartbroken and without hope. They are convinced that they have more issues than they really have,
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Over the years of helping couples in need, I have found that husbands and wives in a troubled marriage desperately need what I call “handle bars of information”. That is, they are typically looking for very specific instructions on what to do and when to do it as they are often drowning in their feelings of discouragement and despair.
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I sometimes laugh when couples I coach think I am “hitting home” in a session as if I have some type of extrasensory perception or I have been a fly on the wall in their marriage secretly recording their conversations. The truth of the matter is that Corinthians tells us that “there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man”.
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It is more than vital for couples to realize that in order to obtain the right answers, they must ask the right questions. Instead of asking, how will we ever fix our marriage, maybe there is a better question. Could it be that your marriage is limping along because both participants have unhealthy hearts?
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The reason why some are unable to love, forgive, and take risk in a relationship is simple: they have too much at stake.
Love takes risk, but without the safety net and sense that God has our back and holds our future, many will be unable to sacrifice what they want for the needs of others.
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I keep hearing this phrase that feminism killed masculinity. That’s a bunch of crock. Feminism did not kill masculinity. It merely replaced it.
When men replaced the study with the man cave, they gave up the foundation of their manhood. The scriptures tell us that wisdom is better than strength,
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A few years back, I literally thought that I may be forsaking my call as a preacher of the gospel to give so much time toward the subject of marriage. However, as the years have unfolded, I have found that our team is on the front-line of evangelism.
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If you are not content before you wake up in the morning, you will not be content in your marriage.
Let’s face it. Many marriages get bad advertisement. The problem is not so much with compatibility as much as the health of the individuals involved.
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Happy wife, happy life. You may be surprised at the number of men that loathe this little statement. However, I would like to pull a little rank on some and speak from my experience as to why this statement is so vital.
Hitting Home has been helping couples since 2002.
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In working with couples, I am finding a number of adults between the ages of 35 and 45 that are reverting back to when they were about 17. This is often evidenced by any or all of the following:
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Generally speaking, when it comes to physical intimacy, women seem to have this on and off switch that can be in the on position one day, but in the off position on another. For men, it seems to be a little different as their switch tends to be stuck in the on position.
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At our last marriage conference in Missouri, I spent a good amount of time talking about the rage that is in the average person’s heart in our day. The reason for this is simple: the further away a society runs from the reality of the cross, the more rage they carry in their souls.
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This December, my wife and I will have been married for 25 years. I am more than thankful for the lessons we have learned along the way.
A Few Lessons We Have Learned
Though we are certainly not the Corn-flake couple,
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During the first session of our marriage conferences, we take the time to discuss the importance of the Father’s presence in each of our lives. In fact, I often say that without an eternal view of our lives and marriages, our advice simply serves as five smooth stones placed in the wrong sling of selfishness and humanism.
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Does your marriage suffer from what I call emotional amnesia? That is, when a problem arises, do you or your spouse act as if you have never learned good conflict resolution skills? Do you forget about the emotional heart strings that have been tied throughout the years and give place to your raw emotions?
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It seems that there is a thread that runs through much of my coaching, teaching, and writing as I teach individuals and couples about the ways of God in relation to marriage and relationships. This thread can be summed up in this little phrase: this is what it looks like.
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The longer I coach and counsel couples, the more I am convinced that the greatest need for spouses is to gaze upon Christ through His Word. (II Corinthians 3:18)
We all have a dividing line between our soul and our spirit (Hebrews 4:12), and I am finding that unless that dividing line is precisely hit with the presence of the Father (John 14:21-23),
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The way I treat my wife says a lot about my relationship with God. Far fetched? Let me use a little of the King James vernacular here in response: I trow not.
I John 4:20 teaches us that if we cannot love those that we see,
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Do problems in a marriage change the marriage or accentuate the Relationship IQ of the spouses involved? In many instances, I choose the latter.
Wisdom is the DNA of success. It is the canvas upon which the portrait of success is painted, and, to be very frank, this is why far too many marriages present such a bleak picture of marriage.
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Discontentment causes people to feel that their environment needs to change, when, in many cases (yet not all), the problem is not their environment, but the instability in their heart. (James 4:1-2)
Discontent spouses often feel they received the short end of the the stick in life, rushed into matrimony,
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I did some math the other day, and I realized that in 25 years I will be 70 years of age. That said, I guess it’s time to just go all out and attack the radical problems of our day with radical solutions.
Marriage is the axle to which every spoke in our society is connected.
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I find that the problem with many is not so much that they fail to give the right answers as much as they tend to ask the wrong questions.
For many, instead of asking, “Should I leave my marriage?”, “Are we compatible?”, “Is there too much water under the bridge?”,
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I am finding more and more men that are just plain frustrated, and their frustration appears to have some semblance of validity.
Quite simply, many men seem to be lining up in protest against what they feel is an uneven patch on the battle ground of relationships.
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I often hear spouses in troubled marriages say things like, “You only live once. If I don’t jump ship now, how much time will I have to start all over and enjoy a good marriage.”
The problem, however, is that, if we are in Christ,
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A man may act defensive, inconsiderate, or non-nonchalant when his wife is upset, but I am not so convinced this is his initial reaction deep down inside.
Generally speaking, men are goal-oriented. In fact, I find that most men really do want to please their wives. However, when this goal goes unmet,
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Every marriage is like a well. Without a source outside of itself, it will fall short in producing that which it was designed to supply.
I am a pastor, director of Hitting Home, father of eight, boys varsity basketball coach, and an owner of another family business we started about seven years ago.
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I always backed down in a discipleship or counseling session when someone said they were in pain. Mostly because I did not want to overstep my bounds as a person that was a fare stranger to this foe.
Most of you know our story by now. You are aware that pain entered our lives as a family about a year ago upon the passing of our sweet Grace.
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There are two emotions in life that cause hardships in our relationship with God, our spouses, and our children. Though one seems to get a pass on many an occasion, both are extremely destructive. These menaces are fear and greed.
If fear and greed were villains,
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My wife and I could destroy one another if we wanted to. Yep, that’s exactly what I said. Even though I am a marriage coach, author of a marriage book, marriage speaker, and a pastor, we could easily focus on the past, nitpick our idiosyncrasies, and wake up each morning with a load of case files against the other.
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I have been a Christian since the age of 17 and my flesh is no more saved today than the first day I came to Christ. Though it’s a little frustrating at times, it was also the admission of the apostle Paul when he said “in me (that is,
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It was just a few months ago that I heard the word “adulting” for the first time. I have to be honest. I was a little taken aback with its mere existence. That is, the very presence of the word should speak volumes to us in that if we even need such a word,
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In our out-of-balance society, we often have a very distorted view of the Biblical teaching on headship in marriage.
The scriptures teach that the man is the head of the wife. This is evident in Ephesians 5:23 where God says:
“For the husband is the head of the wife,
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We are all well aware of financial entitlement, but have you ever considered that some have an issue with emotional entitlement? You may also not be aware that this sense of emotional entitlement can cause great difficulties in any marriage or premarriage relationship.
Where Does Entitlement Come From?…
How many options are on the table when you have a disagreement with your spouse? That is, are they able to disagree or refrain from giving you what you desire without you losing your cool, getting huffy, or pouting? If not, then there is a good possibility that you are controlling your spouse through your emotions.
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It is very interesting to see the type of statements and thoughts that pass as normal and acceptable thinking that are not only unbiblical, but, if I may, absolutely absurd. One of those thoughts is often voiced in any of the following ways:
I am looking for someone that won’t try to change me.
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I can secure the finest black powder and the best cannon balls, but if the angle of the cannon is off, then I should never expect to hit my target.
Why is it that a number of spouses have made what they feel are all the right changes,
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For the first time in my life, I believe I can honestly say, “I feel your pain.”
Many of our readers are already aware that this last year we lost our 12 year old daughter, Grace Evangeline, in an automobile accident. Though we have been surrounded by His Presence and care over the last 7 months,
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Everyone wants to know what to do in order to move forward in their relationships, but few seem to realize that even the best attempts at doing something different still miss the mark.
The ultimate goal in solving marriage issues or refining a pre marriage relationship should never be to do more as much as it should be to be what God would have you to be.
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You may think that you are just an impatient spouse. However, it could be that impatience is only a secondary issue. Your real problem may lie in other areas.
A Futile Approach
Many feel that the answer for their marriage problems is to just work harder at showing more patience.
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Last week, we were coming back from ministering at a family conference in Wisconsin and I met a young man that was soon to be married. In fact, he was a young Christian man that is about three weeks away from marriage.
After the meal,
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Some women learn from an early age that though they may not be able to overpower the men in their lives, they can use emotional manipulation as a wrestling move of sorts to get their way. As a father of seven with four girls, I have seen this first hand.
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Faith in God is obeying Him and leaving all the consequences to Him. This is why Proverbs 3:6 teaches:
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Our primary concern is never to be a specific result as much as our obedience to our Heavenly Father.
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If a man only works at providing an atmosphere of love and safety in his marriage, he will fall short of fulfilling his role as a husband. Though love and safety are vital, a man also needs to add a little danger to the mix in order to complete the romantic puzzle.
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I am increasingly mesmerized at the amount of Christians that have a light view of the marriage covenant. Instead of till death do them part, it’s as if they vowed, “as long as I am happy”, “till we grow weary of one another”, or “as long as my expectations are met”.
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The tendency to love conditionally seems to run through our bloodstream. I see this as I pastor, counsel, deal with children, conduct business, and manage my own emotions.
Let’s face it, we are conditional lovers by nature. Maybe this is why God described mankind in the following way in Romans 3:17:
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