Daly Focus Blog
More than likely, you’ve taken a personality test or two, read a book on the subject, or even heard us talk about the topic on our Focus on the Family Broadcast. In 42 years, our ministry has featured numerous guests who have helped listeners discover whether they’re a lion or a golden retriever. A pleaser or an avoider. A sanguine or a choleric.
If none of those terms sound familiar, listen through some of our past broadcasts that cover personality and love styles.
Do you have someone in your life who’s toxic? Someone who’s negative, even antagonistic toward you. Someone who tries to control your life. Someone who, no matter what you say or do to please them, it’s never enough.
What’s a good way to respond to a person like that?
Christians are especially likely to have relationships with toxic people. Coming alongside another person with the love of Christ in a time of need can be messy.
My wife and I often discuss our relationship in terms of a theme. It could be “forgiveness,” or “grace,” or maybe “patience.” Then we try to weave that theme into every part of our marriage. Not only will we try to be more patient, for example, but we’ll make patience a part of our conversation with one another for that season of life.
Sometimes all it takes to infuse a marriage with more happiness is a few small changes.
Todd and Karen Ehman were convinced they were perfectly matched for one another … until they went to premarital counseling.
They underwent a battery of tests and expected their counselor to tell them, “Your relationship was made in heaven. You’re going places. You’re going to do great things for God.” Instead, he held Todd’s profile in one hand and Karen’s profile in the other. He said, “I have to be honest with you. I know you love each other, and you love the Lord.
The assassination of our 20th President, James Garfield, offers an important lesson for people struggling with bitterness and resentment.
Let’s start with when Garfield was assassinated. It’s hard to say exactly. He was shot on July 2nd, 1881, less than four months into his term. But he didn’t die until 79 days later, on September 19th.
It’s also difficult to say exactly who killed him. The man who shot President Garfield was named Charles Guiteau. But Garfield didn’t die from his gunshot wound.
There’s no one way to raise children. Discipline that works magic with one child may be completely ineffective with another.
At the bottom of every effective parenting strategy lies a universal foundation to good parenting: relationship.
Author Josh McDowell says, “Rules without relationship leads to rebellion.” That means your child’s primary concern in life is not your rules.
What matters most to your teen or young adult is knowing that you love them.
That sense of intimate connection won’t come through your instruction, lectures, or rules.
Hurdlers don’t usually stumble on the open stretch of track. Victory or defeat is mostly about clearing the obstacles.
It’s the same for marriage. Relationships don’t stumble when everything is calm, and life is rolling along smoothly. Problems tend to develop when couples encounter some kind of stress.
Those moments are an opportunity for husbands and wives to work together as a team.
My wife and I have gone through quite a few transition periods. We’ve faced challenges in our extended families, relocated to new cities, and raised two boys.
When you walked down the aisle, what was your vision for you and your spouse? Did you want a “nice” marriage?
A “friendly” marriage?
A “we get along” marriage?
Probably not.
Most couples are searching for intimacy, connection, romance, and excitement. But years into their marriage, many husbands and wives are bored. Life has settled into a routine – a rut, really – and they’re not connecting like they once did.
If you’ve reached that place in your marriage, you might be thinking, “This isn’t what I had in mind.” The good news is that’s not what the Bible says God has in mind for you, either.
Marriage is changing.
There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which are cultural forces, political maneuverings, and judicial rulings that have systematically redefined marriage in past years.
There’s also been a shift in the average age for first marriages. More and more young people are staying single for far longer than past generations. Some are choosing not to marry at all, in many cases as a reaction to seeing their own parents divorce.
Do you find it difficult to sit through church without touching your phone?
Does technology tend to decrease your productivity?
Do you often check your phone for calls, emails, or texts?
If you answer yes to questions like these, you may be nomophobic – you have a fear of being without your mobile phone.
Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Michigan studied families with children between the ages of 10 and 17.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
