When our son, Brent (now the President of MarriageToday) was five years old, he asked me one evening during dinner the meaning of a vulgar word he’d heard a friend use. It was the word you don’t want to hear come out of your child’s mouth. Inwardly, I was shocked. Karen certainly was. But I kept my cool and told Brent, in terms he could understand, that it was a word the devil made up to try to make a... Read more
If you want to see a person’s future, just look at their friends. You become whom you hang out with. Allow immoral friends into your life, and you are likely to find yourself sliding into immoral behavior. Surround yourself with kind, compassionate, and loving people, and you are likely to find yourself becoming kinder, more compassionate, and more loving. Peer pressure can be negative or positive, but there’s no overstating the power it plays in a person’s life. We know... Read more
We men don’t realize often enough that women are complicated when it comes to sexual expression. We can’t just walk up to our wives and say, “Let’s have sex!” As suave and debonair as we might think ourselves to be, that’s not going to cut it. For women, the desire for sex isn’t something that just turns on like a microwave. She has to warm to it, and one way that happens is through affection. Especially non-sexual affection. This seems... Read more
When a husband strives to meet and even exceed these expectations, his wife will feel loved and his marriage will thrive. Here are 7 important things that a wife expects (and needs) from her husband (in no particular order). Read more
One of the most significant sources of stress in marriage is tied to expectations. When expectations are unclear, unhealthy, unspoken or unmet, one or both spouses can start to feel neglected, inadequate and/or frustrated with the marriage. I’m convinced many (if not most) divorces come back to expectations. When a man and woman first start out together in marriage, both of them are carrying unspoken expectations. They each have a vision of what the home life will be. They have... Read more
When Karen and I first got married, I had a real problem with my temper. We would get in a fight—usually it was my fault—and in our anger we would say some pretty hurtful things to each other. The big problem was not that we got angry. Every couple gets angry from time to time. The problem was that we never could resolve that anger. The day would end and we’d still be made at each other. We would go... Read more
(Adapted from Jimmy’s newest book, When Life Hurts) There are some topics that pastors rarely tackle head-on, and one of them is the ancient question about God’s goodness: Why does God allow tragedy? When a typhoon destroys cities and kills thousands as it did recently in the Philippines, we are left reeling in the chaos and devastation, asking “Why didn’t a God who controls the wind and the waves do something?” When a father loses his son at the... Read more
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Cor. 15:33) Karen and I are very careful about the friends we choose. In forty years of marriage, we’ve built close relationships with at least fifty other couples. More than acquaintances, these are people we hang out with and consider our inner circle of friendship. Out of all those friends, only one couple has divorced. One. That’s extraordinary given the statistics. The two people who did divorce used to... Read more
When John was writing the book of Revelation, the spirit of God prompted him to write down several warnings from Jesus to churches at the time. Christ’s words to the believers at Ephesus are words that many of us can apply to our marriages. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first…” The church at Ephesus had forsaken its “first love,” so Jesus gave these believers a three-step plan for restoring... Read more
Last week we discussed three unhealthy forms of communication that can have destructive consequences within a marriage and family: silence, verbal abuse, and manipulation. Here are three more negatives that should be removed from your family’s communication before they cause harm: Erratic and inconsistent behavior: All of us have good days and bad days, but in dysfunctional families, these mood swings are extreme—and extremely harmful. One day the world is great. Positive words fill the home. But the next day... Read more
MarriageToday
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In