This past weekend, my family had the enormous joy of celebrating my parent’s 60^th wedding anniversary. It is rare indeed that couples remain married long enough, or live long enough to reach such a momentous milestone. I figure that anyone married that long will have some premium advice on how to make a marriage last—advice that’s far better than any that Seinfeld or his philandering and serially-divorced pals have to offer.  Seizing the occasion, I asked my mom to come up with a few tidbits of marriage/relationship advice to share with you on my blog.

So here are 10 tried-and-true pure-gold tips from my mom, a 60-year marriage pro:

1. Don’t confuse love with infatuation. Love is much more than just a feeling—it’s a choice.
2. Love is giving and serving.
3. To love, you need to “grow up” and make mature instead of childish choices.
4. When you say “I do” on your wedding day, you enter into the school of love. Remember that you will always be a student. Learning how to love requires constant, life-long effort.
5. As you go through life, you will have to adjust to one another again and again.
6. To overcome difficulties, you have to set aside personal interests and die to self. It’s hard, but it’s worth it.
7. Always try to esteem, recognize and encourage your spouse.
8. Read Gods precious Word together for encouragement and guidance.
9. Pray together.
10. Use the “Love Passage” (1 Corinthians 13) to regularly evaluate if you’re doing a good job loving your spouse:

• Am I patient with my spouse?
• Am I kind to my spouse?
• Am I envious of, or feel like I’m in competition with my spouse?
• Am I boastful that I am better than my spouse?
• Am I rude toward my spouse?
• Am I seeking my own interests rather than my spouse’s interests?
• Am I easily angered?
• Do I keep a record of wrongs?
• Do I always protect and guard our relationship?
• Do I choose to trust my spouse?
• Do I hold on to hope for our marriage?
• Do I always persevere?
• Does my love for my spouse never fail?

There you have it.  Brent and I been married for almost 28 years, and given my mom’s list, still have a lot of learning and growing up to do in the marriage department. I guess that’s her point– that a good marriage requires a life-long commitment to work at being a better lover. I think that this week I’ll try to recognize and encourage Brent more. What about you? Which piece of my Mom’s advice will you put into practice this week?

Oh, and thanks Mom—for your and Dad’s amazing example! What a gift and what a legacy you have left for your children, grandchildren and their children to come. Happy Anniversary! I love you!!!

© Mary A. Kassian

Girl-Gone-Wild: Relationships Grow
Girl-Gone-Wise: Relationships Deteriorate

Girl-Gone-Wild: “For many a victim she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.” Proverbs 7:26

Girl-Gone-Wise: “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” Proverbs 14:1

“For many a victim she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng” is military language. Several commentators think the Sage used this description to bring to his son’s mind the familiar image of the Phoenician goddess, Astarte. Astarte is queen of the Morning Star, goddess of war-a wild and furious warrior who sadistically “plunges knee-deep in knights’ blood; hip deep in the gore of heroes.” She is also Queen of the Evening Star, goddess of sensuality and passion. She is beautiful, desirable, sexual, savage, and deadly. She’s a ruthless conqueror who leaves the battlefield strewn with corpses. Solomon hoped the allusion would help his son grasp the danger of associating with such a woman.

The seductress causes the downfall and destruction of many men. From all outward appearances, she’s just a beautiful woman looking for a friend. But in actuality, she’s a “man-slayer.” She uses men. She hurts them. She’s not a builder, she’s a destroyer. She tears her “victim” down and “lays him low.” The fact that she uses him to meet her own selfish ends, disregards that it will affect him negatively, and discards him when he no longer serves her purposes demonstrates contempt and a severe lack of respect.

Have you noticed how prevalent disrespect toward men has become? In the sixties, women complained that men victimized and disrespected them. Now the tables have turned. Our sons, husbands, fathers, and men-friends are subjected to malicious jokes and attitudes that wouldn’t be tolerated toward any other group. Women portray them as selfish, lazy, inconsiderate, hormone-crazed buffoons. They gleefully slander and tear them down simply because they are male. Women today are like the Phoenician goddess. One moment, they entice men with their beauty and sexual prowess, and the next, they pull out their swords and slice them down.

Male-bashing, the stereotyping and portrayal of men as brutal, stupid, or otherwise objectionable, is commonplace. In Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, professors Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson from McGill University warn that male-bashing is so pervasive in movies, television, comic strips, and even greeting cards, it could have “disastrous consequences” for the well-being of the next generation.

Christians are not innocent of this sin. I am astonished when I see the haughtiness and contempt with which Christian women treat men. I feel grieved when I hear them tell jokes, mock, deride, put down, and criticize their male colleagues, friends, boyfriends, and husbands. I wonder how they can have the audacity to disrespect and hurt those whom God has created. Sadly, the church is filled with man-slayers. Instead of building men up, we attack, destroy, and bring them down. We use the sword of our tongues to lay them low. Disrespect is one of the main reasons relationships break down. Can you imagine how much longer they’d last if we treated our husbands and friends with respect and didn’t lash out to wound them? If, instead of criticizing, complaining, whining, and demanding that they live up to their responsibilities, we took care to ensure that we lived up to ours?

The following list summarizes some of the Bible’s directives on how we ought to regard and respect others. They represent the nuts-and-bolts on what God requires of us in our relationships with one another:

• “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:3-5)
• “Love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1)
• “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” (Romans 15:2)
• “Encourage one another and build one another up.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
• “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)
• “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15)
• “Do not grumble against one another.” (James 5:9)
• “Bear one another’s burdens.” (Galatians 6:2)
• “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” (Ephesians 4:2)
• “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)
• “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Colossians 3:13)
• “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13:34)
• “Let all things be done for building up.” (1 Corinthians 14:26)

The thing about these commands is that they have no qualifiers. They’re not dependent on how our partner behaves. They don’t say, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth if no corrupting talk comes out of his.” Or “Build him up if he builds you up.” Or “Be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving him if he is kind and tenderhearted, forgiving you.” God doesn’t give us the option of respecting only those who are respectable. He commands: “Honor everyone!” (1 Peter 2:17). The reasons most relationships break down is that the parties spend more time pointing fingers at how the other person is failing to be honorable, rather than making sure that they themselves are.

It breaks my heart when I see wives “man-slaying” their husbands-cutting them down instead of building them up. Women, don’t ever forget that when you hurt your husband, you hurt yourself. “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down” (Proverbs 14:1). A Girl-Gone-Wise does not tear down. She is a builder and not a destroyer. She demonstrates respect.

© Mary A. Kassian

This is a pre-publication excerpt from “Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild,” © Mary A. Kassian to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. All rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this post, but please do not copy and/or reproduce this copyrighted material without express written permission of Moody Publishing.

The dictionary defines love as “a feeling of warm personal attachment or strong affection.”  But if love is primarily a feeling, then what happens when the feeling isn’t there? How do I love when I feel no affection? How do I love when all I feel is annoyed or angry? Or ambivalent…how do I love when I feel nothing at all?

“Always remember that love is a choice.”

My mom’s words are full of wisdom. Although it is often felt in the heart, love is primarily an act of the will. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in the way God loves us. In the Old Testament, two Hebrew words describe God’s love for his people. The first Hebrew word for love, ahab, means: “to desire, to breathe after; to be inclined toward, to delight in.”  The Lord God delights in us and is inclined toward us. He desires – “breathes after” – us with affectionate (ahab) love. Although Ahab is an intense word, it’s only used a handful of times with regard to the Lord. There’s another richer, more powerful word that’s used repeatedly throughout Old Testament Scripture to describe God’s love for us: the Hebrew word chesed.

Chesed speaks of a love that is firmly rooted in choice. It involves loyalty, steadfastness and commitment to a promise. It’s a love that doesn’t depend on the response or behavior of the receiver but rather on the steadfast character and commitment of the giver. Ahab has to do with feelings, whereas chesed implies a mind-set and mode of interaction based on unwavering loyalty to a commitment.

“Always remember that love is a choice.”

Understanding that love is primarily a choice has helped me countless times over the years.  I can choose to love.  I can choose to love my husband, even if he’s getting under my skin. I can choose to love my child, even if he’s seething with rebellion.  I can choose to love my relative, even if she’s interfering and critical. I can choose to love my boss, even if she’s overbearing and unreasonable. I can choose to love my friend, even if she’s just stabbed me in the back. I choose to love God when I choose to act and respond to others with his kind of love.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” ( 1 John 4:10-11)

I’d love to hear from you. Do you have a story to share? Have you made the choice to love, even when you’ve not felt like it? How did you act on your choice? Or do you need more resolve and grace to make the choice to love in a tough situation? This Valentine’s week, we all would do well to heed my mother’s words:

“Always remember that love is a choice.”

AUTHOR NOTE: Mary Kassian is author of several Lifeway Bible Studies. She and her husband Brent have mastered the art of cheering after spending countless hours watching their sons play ice hockey and volleyball. The Kassian clan and their pets, Miss Kitty and black lab, General Beau, live in Western Canada. (Copyright Mary Kassian, 2008)

RETURN TO MAIN MENU

It would have been so easy for that mother to focus on the mess her child had made. She could have scolded him for his incompetence in spilling ink, or his failure to cover the area with newspaper, or his impatience at not waiting for her assistance. But instead, she affirmed him. And with her encouragement, he gained the desire, confidence, and determination to become a great artist.

Our words can nourish others, and give them the desire, confidence, and determination to do great things. The Bible says:

“The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value. The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment” (Prov. 10:20-21).

Righteous lips speak words of nourishment. To nourish means, “to feed and cause to grow; to cherish, promote, encourage and support.” Encouragement tells the other person: “I value you. I want you to succeed. I am cheering for you. Keep going! You can do it!”

The Benefits of Encouragement

In the Bible, there are many examples of people who encouraged others. Moses encouraged Joshua (Deut. 3:28), Titus encouraged Paul (2 Cor. 7:4), Tychicus encouraged the believers at Ephesus and Colossi (Eph. 6:22; Col. 4:8), Judas and Silas encouraged the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:32), Timothy encouraged the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 3:2). A man named Joseph was so good at encouraging that the apostles nicknamed him “Barnabas” which means “Son of Encouragement.” (Acts. 4:36)

Hebrews 3:13 admonishes us to “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Paul wanted believers to encourage each other every day. He viewed encouragement as being so important that he sent messengers great distances for the express purpose of encouraging the believers. Why is encouragement so important? What does encouragement do for people? According to the Bible:

• It builds them up (1 Thess. 5:11)
• It makes them feel loved, appreciated, and supported (Phm 7; 2 Cor. 7:13)
• It strengthens them to do good deeds and speak good words (2 Thess. 2:16-17)
• It helps them remain true to the Lord with all their hearts (Acts 11:23)
• It lifts their heaviness and refreshes them (1 Thess. 3:2; Phm 7)
• It gives them courage for the task before them (2 Chron 32:6-7)
• It helps them overcome timidity and insecurity (1 Thess. 5:14)
• It counters feelings of isolation and contributes to a spirit of unity (1 Thess. 3:6-10; Rom. 15:5)
• It gives them joy and strength in the face of difficulty (2 Cor. 7:4, 7)
• It enables them to be bold and confident (Phil. 1:14)
• It helps them to remain true to their calling (Deut. 1:38)
• It helps them retain perspective and to hope and trust in God (2 Chron. 32:6-7)

One word of encouragement can lift our burdens; turn our gloom into sunshine, and our weakness into strength. But so often, we fail to encourage each other. Have you ever felt like giving up because of a lack of encouragement? I have. The moment I most needed encouragement all I received was criticism. Instead of rejoicing in the picture I was trying so hard to paint, others merely pointed to the ink that I had spilled. And as a result, I felt like throwing away the canvas.

Encourage and Build Up

Encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, so that it may benefit those who listen. Ephesians 4:29

Before I got married, I memorized Ephesians 4:29 and decided to make it the “prime directive” in regards to how I spoke to my husband. Though I’ve often fallen short, this decision has served me well over the past 25 years. Focusing on the good, being my husband’s biggest fan, and aiming to build him up according to his needs is one the wisest, most productive things I’ve done for my marriage. It not only benefits him. It also benefits me.

A relationship is like an account with a bank balance. Each time you interact positively – speaking affirming, encouraging words – you make a deposit into that account. Each time you speak critically or negatively, you make a withdrawal. Is the balance in your account growing? Are you investing in the relationship or accumulating a debt and headed for foreclosure? Does your account have a large enough balance to cover the stress of unexpected events? When it comes to relationships, it’s best to invest. In doing so, we lay up the “treasures” of friendship and love that God intended for us.

Here’s today’s challenge for you:

1. Memorize Ephesians 4:29 and make it the prime directive for your speech.
2. Speak words of affirmation and encouragement. Make a deposit into your relationship account today. (And plan on making small deposits every day from now on too.)

AUTHOR NOTE: Mary Kassian is author of several Lifeway Bible Studies. She and her husband Brent have mastered the art of cheering after spending countless hours watching their sons play ice hockey and volleyball. The Kassian clan and their pets, Miss Kitty and black lab, General Beau, live in Western Canada. (Copyright Mary Kassian, 2008)

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“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” James 1:19 (NIV)

Listening is an active process involving more than just the ears. The Chinese character for the verb “to listen” contains the symbols for ear, eyes, heart, and undivided attention. Active listening involves giving our undivided attention – hearing with our ears, observing carefully with our eyes, and understanding with our hearts. Today’s challenge is to work hard to put James 1:19 into practise:

1. Be quick to listen: Make an effort to REALLY listen to those who speak to you. Focus hard on truly understanding the other person’s viewpoint. Use the L-I-S-T-E-N-ing skills outlined below.
2. Be slow to speak: For the rest of the day today, before you give an answer, breathe a silent prayer to the Lord asking him to direct your words.
3. Be slow to anger: Try to park your emotional reactions. When you feel your internal temperature rising, ask the Lord to help you gain control. You can read an article on anger by clicking HERE.

L-I-S-T-E-N

Effective communicators love to listen to others. How do they do this? By working at the following LISTEN-ing skills:

LIMIT YOUR LIP: The first aspect of listening is talking less. By limiting your lip you give the other person the opportunity to express his or her thoughts. A philosopher once said, “We have been given two ears and but a single mouth, in order that we may hear more and talk less.” If you truly want to understand the speaker, you will avoid the tendency to monopolize the conversation with your own ideas.

IDENTIFY KEY ISSUES: In most conversations, the speaker will have a central idea or concern that he or she is trying to communicate. Effective listeners use their “spare thinking time” to extract this main thought from the speaker’s words and behavior. They carefully observe the verbal, vocal and visual parts of the message and mentally seek to identify the key issue. They ask themselves questions such as: “How does he feel?” “What does this mean to her?”

SILENCE DISTRACTIONS: Listening distractions can be external; such as ringing cell phones and doorbells, newspaper, radio, TV, or other conversations. Distractions can also be internal, such as preoccupation with other thoughts, fatigue, and stress. Effective listeners do everything possible to silence the internal and external distractions that can hinder their ability to listen.

TABLE CONCLUSIONS: Most of us are guilty of making snap judgments and evaluating others before hearing them out. This temptation is the greatest when the speaker’s ideas differ from our own. Instead of exchanging ideas, conversations turn into verbal combat, with “opponents” trying to conquer and claim victory for their point of view. Effective listeners table their conclusions until they are certain they understand the speaker’s point of view. They listen, echo & inquire to confirm understanding, and then evaluate.

ECHO & INQUIRE: Effective listeners check to make sure they are decoding the speaker’s thoughts and feelings accurately. They do this by reflecting their understanding back to the speaker for verification (echo), and by asking questions (inquire). They do not conclude that they understand until the speaker clarifies and verifies the listener’s decoding. We’ll learn more about how to echo and inquire in the next section’s Tongue Tonic.

NEGATE DEFENSIVENESS: Effective listening is non-defensive listening. The listener’s goal is to understand the speaker’s perspective – what the speaker thinks and feels, and why he or she feels that way. The goal is not to defend, give a rebuttal, or counterattack. Effective listeners negate defensiveness. They are willing to receive, that is, try to understand, whatever message the speaker sends.

Which part of LISTEN-ing do you need to work on? You might want to learn the acronym so you can monitor your own listening habits.

Listening is hard work. Studies show that the physical changes that occur during attentive listening – quickened heart rate, increased respiration and increased body temperature – are similar to the changes that occur during physical exertion. Focusing our energy on listening and observing requires diligent effort on our part. But the effort is well worth it. Listening well is one of the most important factors in communicating effectively.

Working hard at listening will also help you be “slow to speak” and “slow to anger.” How did the James 1:19 challenge go for you? Share your experience by posting a note in the response box at the bottom of this page.

AUTHOR NOTE: Mary Kassian is author of several Lifeway Bible Studies. She and her husband Brent have mastered the art of cheering after spending countless hours watching their sons play ice hockey and volleyball. The Kassian clan and their pets, Miss Kitty and black lab, General Beau, live in Western Canada. (Copyright Mary Kassian, 2008)

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