I started journaling when my Dad had liver cancer, and us kids would take turns helping Mom take care of Him. He had survived pancreatic cancer, and when it was announced that he had liver cancer he decided that he wasn’t going to go to the hospital, and go through all that he had with the pancreatic cancer. I would sit on Dad’s bed for hours and listen to him talk about everything he knew anything about, and I remember thinking, “I will never remember all that I am hearing, I should be taking some notes so I don’t forget”. As I wrote down the gems of wisdom that I heard Dad speak I would also write my thoughts and emotions that I had as I watched my Dad lose the battle to cancer. That experience took place about 28 years ago and I have been journaling ever since. I have refined and changed what I write in my journal but the benefits that I have received from this discipline have been significant.

The most significant of the half dozen blessings that I have experienced as a result of taking time each day to write about My experiences, the lessons learned, observations about myself, and about my relationship with Jesus is that I have better learned the skill of communicating with words clearly, succinctly, and in a way that is easy to follow and understand. As a preacher this was a huge blessing in my life that has helped me teach the Bible to people so that they understand it and are motivated to live it. As I continue to work on this skill and art of communicating clearly, writing is my main tool, and my journaling about my life is my focus.

God created us interdependent, that is we are all pieces to a puzzle, organs of a body, or parts of an engine. On our own, by ourselves we have no chance of doing anything well, it just isn’t possible by God’s design. The definition of pride is, “I can do it by myself, I don’t need you”.

1 Corinthians 12:20-22. But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary;

There are many, very good marriages around us, and they have a lot of learned and very practical advice to give to any married couple who would be humble enough to ask. The problem is, very few ask because someone might think they have a bad marriage. Very few couples ask for advice or counseling until their marriage is so far gone that there is little hope in fixing it.

Proverbs 1:5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory.

Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.

Proverbs 13:10 Through insolence comes nothing but strife, but wisdom is with those who receive counsel.

Proverbs 24:6 For by wise guidance you will wage war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

God is all wise, and He has given us much of His wisdom in His Word if we would read it, and if we would believe it, and if we would do it.

Number 8 was for the wives and number 9 is for the husbands. “Husbands, love your wives the way Jesus loves the church”. It is hard to believe, but I don’t remember ever saying “I love you” to Patty in our first 20 years of marriage. She says I did a few times. In about 1990 I decided I needed to change that so I made a goal to tell Patty 5 times every day that I loved her. Because of the marked increase in saying “I love you”, Patty asked me one day what exactly I was saying, what did I mean when I said “I love you”. I asked her if she would give me a couple of days to think about how to answer that question, and she graciously agreed. So I read and reread every verse in the Bible on love, and read a couple of books on the subject. I came to the conclusion that Biblical love is not a statement of affection, or how we feel toward a person emotionally, but to say to someone that you love them is to say that you are committed to them as a person, that you are committed to doing whatever it takes to meet their needs. When I got back to Patty to tell her what I meant when I said “I love you”, I told her that I was making 7 specific commitments to her and every time I said to her “I love you”, I was remaking them. The first was that I am promising that you are the only woman in my life, in my thoughts you are it, in my emotions, and in real life. The second commitment was that I would not get angry at her, not even a little bit irritated, no matter what she said or did, or how many times she did it. The third was that I would talk to her any time she wanted, for as long as she wanted, on any subject, and I would honor her by showing sincere attention to her words as she spoke. I don’t have space to give you the other 4 commitments, but Patty loved them.

Of the 10 laws that will result in an awesome marriage #8 is just for the wives. This law is based on Proverbs 12:4. “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.” An excellent wife makes her husband feel like a king. She does that by how she talks to him. The opposite of an excellent wife is one who shames her husband, and makes him feel like he has advanced cancer in his bones. She does that by how she talks to him. The greatest fear in men is shame. We were created by God for glory, but we lost our glory when we sinned for the first time, and continue to lose it almost on a daily basis. Men look for glory in their work, in hobbies, in accomplishments, by boasting and bragging, in sports, but never seem able to find it. 1 Corinthians 11:7 says, ” For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.” Man is the glory of God, and the woman is the glory of man”. In Genesis 2:18 God says that He will create a helper for Adam suitable for him. A helper is not someone who cooks and cleans house, but someone who makes her husband complete and helps maximize his character growth in this life. She does that by giving him glory with the words she thoughtfully speaks to him, and as a result of those glory giving words she finds herself married to a very happy man who is motivated, energetic, a visionary of his own life and his family. We live in a culture that is critical in thinking and rude in speech. A wife who follows the example of our culture will destroy her own marriage with her own words. To be a wife that gives glory to her husband by her words, and doesn’t criticize, grumble, compare, and tear down she needs to premeditate her words of praise to her husband, and learn to listen, really listen to her words to her husband.

Most of the time when a husband or wife attempts to share with their spouse about a blind spot, character flaw, or bad habit they get major push back in the form of excuses, justification, blaming, and denial. If that happens the powerful tool for character growth and life transformation that can take place because of the coaching from our spouse is lost. We all tend towards being unteachable because of our pride, so it takes a personal commitment on each of our parts to choose to be teachable and positively responsive when we are corrected and instructed by our spouse. Proverbs 5:12-13 says, “How I have hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof! I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to my instructors!”. Proverbs calls an unteachable person a scoffer, and the consequences of being a scoffer are many, Proverbs 15:12 says, “A scoffer does not love one who reproves him, He will not go to the wise.” Nobody knows my character flaws and blind spots as well as my wife, so how profitable for me if I could humbly listen and learn from her as she would point them out to me. Because we all have resisted being taught by our spouse they have probably become very reluctant to point out things in our life that we could work on because no one enjoys the rejection we feel when our spouse is a scoffer, so we probably need to encourage them to share with us what we could work on. I word it this way, “what one thing could I change that would make me a better husband, and that would bring more joy into your life?” It is then important to listen attentively, without interrupting, and without justifying, explaining, or denying, and then saying “thank you, I will work on that”.

At JBC’s Marriage retreat I taught what I call the “Ten Commandments that Make a Wonderful Marriage”. #1 is “Keep God first in your life” #2 is “Don’t take offense at anything your spouse does”, #3 is “Don’t say or do anything that would cause your spouse to be hurt of offended, #4 is “Don’t let even a little bit of bitterness stay in your mind and heart, #5 is “Pray for your spouse and with your spouse”, and #6 is “Graciously teach your husband or wife how to be the world’s best spouse to you”.  A marriage motto that I have is “God intended for us to be each other’s marriage manual”. When I got married to Patty, I was a really bad husband, I said or did something that caused her to cry almost daily, but I don’t now.  The reason that I am a way better husband now is because Patty has patiently, graciously, and gently taught me how to make her the happiest woman on the planet earth, and I have done the same. Patty knows my faults, character flaws, and blind spots better than any person living, so why shouldn’t I be receptive to her teaching me what they are so that I can grow and change rapidly. There are two things in us that keep this powerful tool for life change from happing in most marriages. The first is our pride, we don’t want someone telling us how we can improve, even if it means a super, wonderful marriage, we are born terribly prideful and that pride causes so many problems in our life. The second thing that keeps us from giving and receiving counsel from each other is that we are poor teachers even on our best day and because of that we make it very hard for our spouse to accept what we are saying. When we teach our spouse what they can change or grow in, we must never, never, never, not even a little bit, not even a teensy bit, never, never scold your spouse. Scolding guarantees that our spouse will not hear what we say, and if they understand it they won’t do it. We need to ponder what to say and how to say it, we need to pray and ask God for wisdom, we need to be super gracious and gentle, and if we can teach our spouse in a way that they can receive they will grow and change and become the major source of our joy in life as God works in and through them.

One of the most phony phrases used today by believers is “I will pray about it”, or “I will Pray for you”.  The typical prayer of most people is about 5 seconds long and prayed while we are driving, cooking, shaving, working in the garden, etc. Our prayers are convenient, comfortable, crisis driven, easy, and impulsive. I would suggest that God doesn’t do much in response to those kind if prayers, but they are like pacifiers to believers making us think that we did something that mattered, when in fact we have probably dishonored God by our thinking that we can spend a few seconds with Him and expect that He will bless us or others with that volume of prayer.

Colossians 4:12  Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.

The praying that we do for our Spouse will have great power to change their life if we pray like Epaphras, “always laboring earnestly”, and the goal of our praying for our spouse is that their character will become perfect, like that of Jesus. I pray for Patty every night, asking God to bless her, use her, help her grow, protect her from the evil one, and make her the best wife in the world. If seeing our spouse grow consistently to be like Jesus in character is really important to us we will give it some time and pray with passion and earnestness.

We should pray “for our spouse” and “with our spouse”. The agreement between a husband and a wife when they pray makes their prayer the mightiest force on the planet earth to change things forever. If husbands and wives would pray together 3 times each week God would cause them to be increasingly more unified, and in love.

For a marriage to be in the awesome category it must be blessed by God. There are a number of activities or conditions that will bring God’s blessing into our marriage, and there are several that will guarantee that we will not be receiving anything from God to make our marriage special. The number one thing on the part of either husband or wife that will negate every speck of blessing from God is bitterness. Bitterness is failing or refusing to forgive someone of an offense, real or imagined, that they have committed against us, especially our spouse. In The gospel of Matthew Jesus says that if we don’t forgive others God won’t forgive us, and we then experience all the consequences of unforgiven sin in our life and in our marriage. In Matthew 18 Jesus says that if we don’t forgive, that God turns us over to the “torturers “, which would probably mean that demons are allowed access to our life to make us miserable. Sounds like a miserable marriage to me. God expects us to forgive anybody of anything, not because they deserve it, but because He has forgiven us of everything and we didn’t deserve it either. Husbands and wives often refuse to forgive their spouse because they think that by staying angry and bitter they will discourage further offenses, and by forgiving quickly they are saying that the offense was “no big deal”. God’s presence, power, and protection are promised to the person who humbles themselves and forgives their spouse of anything, and trusts God to change their spouses character. In the gospels when Jesus visited His home town it says that “He could not do many miracles there”. Jesus was limited in what He could do by the small faith of the people. God can change the heart of our husband or wife, but we greatly limit what God can do in our spouse’s life and in our marriage by our failure to forgive. It takes some work, but we can train ourselves to forgive anybody of anything quickly, it is not an impossible command. The trilogy of commandments “take no offense”, “give no offense”, and “forgive quickly”, would powerfully impact and change any marriage if the marriage partners could train themselves to successfully do it.

So I have identified 10 key principles that I call commandments that contribute to a really good marriage. The third one is, “Don’t say or do anything that angers, irritates, hurts, or offends your spouse. It doesn’t take very long being married before we discover what our husband or wife doesn’t like or appreciate, what we can say that will hurt their feelings, and what irritates them. It is amazing to me how many spouses will do one of these things on purpose as a payback, because we are upset about something that happened to us, or because we are just being thoughtless. Ephesians 4:29 ought to be an often meditated on verse for every married person, which says, “Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, that it might give grace to those who hear.” A life purpose of mine is to “be God’s instrument of righteousness in the life of Patty to give her great joy so that she is the happiest woman alive on the planet earth.” I make a commitment every morning to pursue this purpose diligently and I ask God for the wisdom and strength each day to make it happen.

At JBC’s marriage retreat this past weekend at Odell Lake Lodge I taught on the “Ten Commandment’s for an Awesome Marriage”. The second is “Take No Offense”. The longer description is that we allow ourselves to feel hurt, offended, angry, or even slightly irritated because of something our spouse said or did or didn’t do for just 5 minutes and then we get over it. The 5 minutes is arbitrary, and in fact when we get this skill reasonably perfected we can make that 1 minute. Most adults will get their feelings hurt, get offended or angry at something their spouse says, does, or doesn’t do, and then they camp there for awhile replaying the event, mulling it over, and amplifying the emotional response that they feel to the point that they respond in such a way that conflict erupts and often escalates. In 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter in the Bible, it says, “love does not take into account a wrong suffered”. We choose to dismiss the offense from our mind, not because it doesn’t matter, but because Jesus has done that for us, and He asks us to do the same. If our reactions to the offenses of our husband or wife actually changed them to the point that they wouldn’t do that same thing again, it might be justified, but the fact is that our emotional responses of hurt, and anger rarely if ever change anything, they just make it worse. Let me suggest a plan to overcome this major problem in most marriages. (1) Admit to yourself that getting your feelings hurt is natural, but reacting in anger, with harsh words, and other forms of retaliation and payback is childish and immature. (2) Admit to yourself that your childish responses don’t change anything, don’t make you feel any better, and in fact make things worse and you feel worse. (3) Make a firm commitment to stop and to take captive the thoughts you have in less than 5 minutes. (4) If you blow it, don’t justify your behavior or blame your spouse not even a little bit, but instead confess it to God as sin, and remake your commitment. (5) The key way to control your thinking is consciously set your mind on something else that is good, and key Bible verses that you have memorized just for this purpose are amazingly powerful to change your emotions and attitude that have come as a result of rude, thoughtless, selfish, or mean behavior on the part of your husband or wife. A basic law of life is, “You don’t have to act the way you feel”. Another basic law is, “I don’t have to let others control my behavior by how they treat me”. And another, “Jesus has forgiven me of everything I have ever done, and He expects me to do the same”.