Improve Yourself, Improve Your Relationships

What’s the single most important thing you can do for your relationship?

Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott answer that question with a simple: get healthy. Your relationship with your kids, your friends, and your spouse will only be as healthy as you are. Becoming healthy requires allowing God’s word to higlight your strengths and weaknesses.

The Parrotts once visited Michelangelo’s famous statue King David while visiting Italy. Thousands of other people were there that day as well. To escape the crowds, the Parrotts explored a nearby hall displaying four incomplete works that Michelangelo labelled “The Captives,” unfinished limbs and torsos that were emblematic of man’s struggle to free the spirit from matter.

To the Parrotts, “The Captives” illustrated the incompleteness we feel when we go through life never knowing our true selves or how they align with God’s love and purpose for us.

On the Focus on the Family Broadcast “Improve Yourself, Improve Your Relationships,” Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott are with us to help couples create stronger marriages by individually growing in three areas of self-discovery:

Profound Significance: True health is rooted in the knowledge that you are profoundly significant in the eyes of God. This is a deeper understanding than intellectual awareness. You experience it. As Saint Augustine said, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
Unswerving Authenticity: Choosing not to be true to yourself means choosing to be fake to others. Authenticity is different than perfection. It’s about integrity with who God has designed you to be rather than conforming to everyone else’s expectations.
Self-Giving Love: Without love, people focus on themselves instead of others.

The first one is about relating to God. The second is about relating to yourself. The third is about relating to everybody else.

There’s much more to say, and you can hear our full conversation on your local radio station, online, on Apple Podcasts, via Google Podcasts, or take us with you on our free phone app.

And while you’re here online, why not take a few moments to try our free Marriage Assessment online tool? It will help you quickly determine what’s working well in your relationship and identify areas where you may need some improvement.

Les and Leslie have been friends of Focus on the Family for many years. They’ve been married since 1984 and have two sons. Les is a clinical psychologist, and Leslie is a marriage and family therapist. They are popular conference speakers, relationship experts, and best-selling authors.

Their book Healthy Me, Healthy Us: Your Relationships are Only as Strong as You Are conveys personal stories, research, and Scripture that will help you better understand how you can develop a strong foundation for your relationship by working on your own heart. The book is available for a gift of any amount. Visit our website or give us a call at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459). If you can’t afford it, we’ll find a way to get it to you.