Category: Tips

Prophetic Eyes for Your Spouse

I remember the day we married like it was yesterday. We said our vows and the next thing you know the man pronounced us husband and wife. We knew the pronouncement made our marriage official. But we had no idea how much we needed prophetic eyes to understand what had just happened.

I was a wide-eyed Nineteen year old who thought he knew everything there was to know about being a husband. After all, my only dream in life for the previous six years was to be a husband.

Now looking back on that day thirty years later, I see a clueless young man and woman that knew very little about being husband and wife. We had the titles; by name, we did become husband and wife with those few spoken words. But we had no idea how much we would have to grow into the shoes we just put on. Read more

I’ll Admit it; I’m Selfish, You Should Be Too.

Every time our marriage looked like it was over. I found myself fighting to hang on and I began to examine myself for what I did wrong. I would remember the things I did to hurt my wife. And whether it was in some small ways or in something major I had done, it all came back to one thing. I was selfish.

My selfish ways were toxic to our marriage. I hurt my wife with stupid things just because I was so selfish. I neglected our marriage and caused her to feel lonely and desperate. Simply because I was too selfish to give her and our marriage the best of me. Read more

Tips to Keep Your Marriage from Drifting Apart

Couples sometimes need some help to keep their love from fading and their relationship from drifting apart. Drifting apart is all too real for so many couples. I would go so far as to say, it is something that happens to all couples at one time or another.

The key is knowing why it happens and what you can do to change it.

Why do we drift?

The Bible teaches us (Gen.2:24) that marriage requires a man and a woman to be joined together. They become one flesh. The KJV Bible uses the word cleave to mean joined together. Other translations use the words embrace, unite, and cling. The picture here is that the covenant marriage relationship is to create a bond of oneness that is so tight there can be no separating what used to be two.

Becoming Best Friends for Life

How did we go from having a really bad marriage for twenty years to a marriage that has become everything we had hoped for? Well, first of all, it took God’s grace, some counseling, and a lot of work. But along the way we discovered something very powerful, something we had lost through all of the fighting and communication breakdowns. We discovered how to be friends again. And the truth is we discovered how to be friends in a way we had never been before.

A funny thing happened along the way as we were making plans to split up for the last time. It was the night before Thanksgiving when we had our last big argument that ended with “we will just get a divorce.” But by the next day, as we worked on the details of what we would do, we made a plan to wait until after Christmas and our son’s birthday in late December. It was then that we started behaving like mature adults. We were both hurting and we were sad, but we started to cherish our last remaining days together.

A Wrecked Car and a Valuable Marriage Lesson

There is something special about your first car, especially if it was a car you could be proud of.

My first car was a 72 Plymouth Duster with a V-8 engine and a stick shift in the floor transmission. Sky blue with two flat black hood scoops and white racing stripes on each side. It was not the fastest car around but it sure was fun to drive. It was the only one around and anyone who knew me knew how much I loved it. The car seemed to be made for me. My car didn’t look as good as the one in this picture. But to me it was real close.

I was sixteen when my Mom bought me that car and I was still driving it a year later when Janet and I started dating. During the eighteen months we dated I even taught her how to drive it. She had always been afraid of straight drives.

Committed to a Covenant

Commitment in marriage is an absolute essential for a marriage to last. It’s the promise we make to each other, “until death do us part,” that gives us the hope of going the distance of being married for life. And when we are challenged with very difficult circumstances we find out how committed we really are. In Life decisions, I talked about my own hopes for a lifelong marriage and how commitment has seen me through some difficult times. All marriages start out with this vision of going the distance, of being married for life.

But, have you ever questioned the reason for saying wedding vows? Could it be that the vows themselves are indicators of what challenges a marriage will face? For better or for worse, in sickness or in health, for richer or poorer, are just some examples of what we have all said. We said these vows as a way of swearing our commitment to each other through whatever circumstances we would face. We swore our commitment in preparation for the tough times. No one ever swore their commitment for something that is easy, fun, and always enjoyable, there’s no need for it. But when we commit ourselves to something that promises to challenge our commitment, we swear a vow to ensure our commitment. Read more

Life Decisions

I made a decision. I was only thirteen years old, but it turned out to be one of the biggest decisions of my life. At the time I didn’t know how important the decision was. I didn’t know it was a “life decision,” but it was. I had made a decision that would set the course of my life. A “life decision” that would determine who I was and how I would live.

As I watch my mother lie in bed for two weeks overwhelmed with grief because her world had just fallen apart when my dad left, I knew right then when I married, my marriage would be for life. I knew I never wanted to hurt the way she was hurting and I knew I would never be the one to hurt someone else that way. Right then and there I made one of the most important decisions of my life, I made a “life decision.”