Daly Focus Blog
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.
Deborah Pegues is the author of the book 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue. The idea for the book came to her after she didn’t control her tongue with a friend.
She thought she was helping when she told somebody else something she wasn’t supposed to tell. Her attempt to help backfired, and she discovered firsthand what happens when we don’t use our words wisely.
That’s when Deborah decided to go on a “tongue fast.” For 30 days, she refused to speak negatively about anything – not the traffic, not the weather, nothing that she couldn’t directly positively influence.
Lucille Williams was washing vomit out of her clothes when she thought, “This is marriage.”
She was on her honeymoon with her husband, Mike. It was the last night of their cruise, and they were enjoying a final dinner with friends they’d made that week. Suddenly, an unexpected bout of sea sickness hit Mike, and he began vomiting uncontrollably. Their dinner guests scrambled to get out of the way, but it was too late for Lucille.
Are you an avoider?
A pleaser?
How about a chaotic or a vacillator?
Those are four of the five the love styles you and your spouse likely see in your marriage. Their various combinations describe the core patterns driving a couple’s interactions and the problems they cause.
Avoiders and pleasers don’t experience much conflict, but for all the wrong reasons. Avoiders don’t like to have honest conversations because they get messy, and pleasers worry their spouse will get mad.
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.
