The Illumination Project Journal (Download)

When you play the blame game your marriage never wins.

We might say that every negative action in the family has an equal and opposite negative reaction.

At the very bottom of things, in every case and in every conversation, you can do your marriage a huge favor by assuming she is seeking to feel loved or he is seeking to feel respected and give your spouse some grace!

Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and your reverence for Jesus Christ.

Pink and Blue perceptions not only affect seeing, they affect hearing as well. Women hear with pink hearing aids and men hear with blue hearing aids. Even more important to understand as you and your spouse seek to gain better communication, you can hear the very same words, but each of you will hear different messages.

Knowing my spouse will not be able to love or respect me perfectly, I commit to having a forgiving spirit so that I may never speak hatefully or contemptuously.

You cannot use unholy means to achieve a worthy end.

A woman needs love like she needs air to breathe. A man needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

To get offended is easy, but to forgive is within your power as you walk in His steps.

The heart of my communication means the other person cannot get my heart to be unkind, unloving, or disrespectful. Instead, I have made a decision about who I will be independent of the other person. I won’t blame my unkindness on someone else.

No one can really practice Love and Respect unless he or she does it as unto Jesus Christ.

There is power and freedom that comes in understanding that no one can cause you to react in a certain way. It is your choice.

Be friendly. Be friendly. Be friendly. Watch what happens.

We can communicate the truth in the best of manners, but the person may be so insecure he or she can only react and attack like a wounded bear.

Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect. He distances himself to prevent feelings from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!

If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving.

We all need love and respect equally. But, during conflict our felt needs are as different as pink is from blue.

When a husband feels disrespected, he has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. (Perhaps the command to love was given to him precisely for this reason!) When a wife feels unloved, she has a natural tendency to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. (Perhaps the command to respect was given to her precisely for this reason!)

Your marriage is really a tool and a test to deepen and demonstrate your love and reverence for your Lord.

Both Judas and Peter denied Jesus Christ, but there is a huge difference between a Judas and a Peter.

A parent needs to feel respected, especially during conflicts...A child need to feel loved, especially during disputes.

Don’t conclude that your spouse is wrong when he/she is seeking to do the right and righteous thing.

The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always love or respect is given unconditionally according to God’s commands.

When a wife asks, “Do you love me?” She is not trying to put her husband on the spot. She is simply looking for reassurance.

We have to step back as Christ followers and ask, “Do I have false expectations that my relationship should be romantic 99% of the time?”

When you love or respect unconditionally regardless of the outcome, you are following God and His will for you.

Feeling unloved, a wife gets defensive and acts offensively without respect. Feeling disrespected, a husband gets defensive and acts offensively without love.

[Husbands] the most powerful weapons you have are your ears. Just listen to your wife, and she is much more likely to feel understood.

Thank the Lord that in the very beginning He created them male and female – Blue and Pink. Ask Him for patience and ever-growing understanding of how men and women see and hear differently. “He created them male and female, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:2)

Never give up. If you want to have a strong marriage, you need to accept temporary setbacks as part of the game.

In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ.

Every marriage includes trouble some of the time. Do not let the 20% leaven all the rest.

You can experience hurt, but it is your choice to hate.

As mature men, we need to take leadership and put this out on the table. We must acknowledge our feelings- we need to feel respected. However, as we do this we must acknowledge our wife’s feelings- she needs to feel loved!

Always see your mate as an ally. Feedback is of little use if you see your spouse as an enemy. Giving and receiving constructive feedback is based on feelings of goodwill in both partners. Both of you need to remember that, even if you don’t always agree and even if you become irritated or angry, you are friends, and neither of you means to hurt the other.

Research shows that 70% of the couples who were extremely unhappy in their marriage, but hung in there and worked through the tough time, identified themselves as being very happy five years later.

Negative actions rarely produce positive results.

If a husband is commanded to agape- love his wife, then she truly needs love.

A strong woman of dignity puts on respect out of her love and reverence for Jesus Christ. She trusts that His word not only protects and empowers her, but also rewards her with incomprehensible eternal blessings.

[Women], as you enter quiet dignity, not preaching at your husband or scolding him as though you were his mother, something happens in his soul as a male.

When evil comes at you, you’re the one who makes the choice of whether or not it is going to go into you.

You must “ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves.”

Your words reveal your heart.

We all need to wrestle with the spiritual truth that God is good. If you don’t believe God is good, you won’t trust His word. If you don’t trust His word, you will find excuses to ignore His commands.

We have different vulnerabilities. We can pass judgment on one another all day long or we can say God made us different and that’s ok.

God’s commands are not burdensome, but are given to us to spare us from more pain. Why would God command you to do something that doesn’t work?

God is not pink. God is not blue. God is purple. When two become one, they have the potential of displaying God’s attributes and character.

If a husband loves his wife as he should, she will feel honored and respected. If a wife respects her husband as she should, he will feel loved and appreciated. It’s a win-win.

Thank God for His forgiveness of your mistakes. In trying to be a loving man or a respectful woman, we blow it. Owning up to mistakes is never easy, but it is always the way to move forward. Take good care not to accuse your spouse of mistakes as you pray. Also, pray about any forgiving to be done in the family, any forgiveness that needs to be asked. Children may need forgiveness (and what about Mom and Dad?). “There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

When sorting out how to slow down the Crazy Cycle, it helps to remember that men are commanded to love because they don’t love naturally, and on the other side, women are commanded to respect because they don’t respect naturally.

The Crazy Cycle is, indeed “the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness” (Ecclesiastes 7:25)

We send each other messages in “code” based on gender, even though we don’t intend to. What I say is not what you hear, and what you think you heard is not what I meant at all.

Husbands, even Jesus Himself was asked by a woman, “Do you not care?” (Luke 10:40) When your wife accuses you of not caring, decode her deeper meaning.

Words of love from a husband are like good medicine that brings life to the marriage.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration, or anger, but you always have a choice.

Your spouse may meet many of your needs, but your deepest dependency should be on your Lord.

[Husbands] do you realize the power of just holding your wife’s hand?

Ladies, be careful. “A nagging wife goes on and on like the drip, drip, drip of the rain” (Proverbs 19:13).

God designed the woman to love. He’s not going to command her to agape her husband when He created her to do that in the first place. God is not into redundancy.

With a better understanding of God’s promises, you will be on your way to a renewed mind and a changed life.

You can be right in the argument, but wrong in your approach.

No matter how difficult your spouse may be at the moment, your spouse does not have control over your reaction; you do. You may be experiencing disappointment, frustration or anger, but you always have a choice. A wife can choose to be disrespectful or respectful. A husband can choose to be unloving or loving.

Money squabbles don’t undermine love and respect; they simply reveal unloving and disrespectful attitudes, which are the real reason why a marriage can start to wobble on the Crazy Cycle.

Troubles over sex and money do not cause a marriage to go under. The lack of love and respect during conflict cause the marriage to go under.

Recognize your different gifts--how each of you (Pink and Blue) functions according to God’s perfect design.

Being a person who communicates what is true frequently demands tact, and at times it can feel like sidestepping land mines. It takes work to be both truthful and tactful.

When confronting your spouse, attack the behavior, not the person.

He will feel appreciated when you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy.

Clearly, in the marriage, in the family and in the household, when you speak words of blessing, you are speaking to the Lord, and for this you will be rewarded.

Optimism or pessimism? It is always a choice, no matter what your natural temperament.

Good intentions do not always produce good words or outcomes.

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Can you begin to trust that God feels love for you even when you don’t feel that love?

How we react to a situation reveals more about us than about the other person.

When you look to God and His Word as your ultimate source of significance and security, you don’t demand that your spouse take that role in your life. And as you draw strength from the Lord individually, He draws you closer together as a couple.

When a husband feels disrespected, it is especially hard to love his wife. When a wife feels unloved, it is especially hard to respect her husband.

Above all trust God when the “whys” of life threaten to overwhelm you.

When you possess a forgiving spirit, words of Love and Respect will flow authentically from your lips- and realize that the Lord Himself is listening to you at moments like these. He knows you are not powerless, but actually full of power that He has granted you.

Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks and yet few find: Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.

If a husband chooses to be a peacemaker--taking the needs and concerns of his wife totally into account during any kind of argument or conflict--his wife will be motivated in turn to respond to his authority during stalemates.

Clarifying is what you do before you step on your mate’s air hose and deflate his or her spirit. For example, you are having a typical conversation, but you can tell there is a misunderstanding. One of you isn’t being clear or isn’t hearing correctly. Then and there you clarify the misunderstanding before your spouse’s spirit deflates. You lovingly or respectfully clarify matters so that your spouse will not feel unloved or disrespected. The reason you take pains to clarify a seemingly small matter is to prevent the situation from becoming a love and respect issue that needs decoding. Clarifying is what you do to stay off the Crazy Cycle and keep positive, energetic feelings flowing between the two of you, to keep yourselves on the Energizing Cycle.

God is good and wants what is best for us.

We must bring our identity in Christ to our parenting—we must not derive our identity from our children.

Our trustworthiness rests on our truthfulness.

Whose voice are you listening to: Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

A most significant point of this book is this: If what we think is true, kind, necessary, and clear, we need to have the courage to hit send. This isn’t about refraining from speaking; this is about speaking.

A marriage relationship will be energized when couples learn how to motivate each other God’s way.

I had often asked God to compensate for my mistakes, but in return had I thought He would give me perfect children?

Through Jesus and Peter, God set forth His standard for living in the unconditional dimension: choose to be loving even when the other person is not; do what is right regardless of the treatment you receive. I believe this standard applies directly to marriage. A husband who speaks lovingly to his disrespectful wife will be rewarded; and a wife who speaks respectfully to her unloving, not-worthy-of-respect husband will be rewarded. Whether you are husband or wife, the reward is what can keep you going in the midst of the craziness: knowing that God commends you, knowing that you have found his favor for your words and actions.

Your spouse deserves the truth from you. Do your best to tell it with love and respect.

Truth will carry its own weight if delivered respectfully and lovingly.

Mutual submission is the only way to live fairly together with mutual authority.

Self-interest should never come ahead of your spouse’s interests.

God rewards your obedience to love and respect, even if your spouse does not respond!

We are either going to give in the darkness or we are going to give into the darkness.

To not forgive is to shoot yourself in the foot and put extra gas in the Crazy Cycle.

Do you understand that God feels compassion for you, no matter what you have done or what your circumstances may be?

Your spouse has a need that you don’t have. Are you going to say there is something seriously wrong with them or will you say “Viva la Difference”?

Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative with lots of love and respect in between.

Do you believe that there is a God who really loves you and wants to help you?