Posted on Monday, October 5, 2015

What to do When Your Husband Checks Out

by Joshua Reich

Many couples have a tension that happens every night when a husband comes home from work. It doesn’t matter if his wife stays at home or she works, but most nights, in most houses, this scene plays out: He walks in the door, drops his stuff, says hi (or says nothing), walks onto the back porch, pulls out his phone or sits down in front of the TV and checks out.

What do you do?

This is a question Katie or I get a lot.

What to do if your husband checks out at night.

If this happens in your house, here are a few things you can do:

1. Have a conversation. Most couples don’t know what their spouse needs or wants from something. Many men do not understand the stress a wife feels from being home all day with kids and having zero adult interactions. Men also don’t understand the pressure a wife feels who works outside of the home, while trying to run a house at the same time.

Women often struggle to understand the pressure that a man is feeling and how he needs to disconnect from work so that he can connect at home and be emotionally present.

2. Set expectations. When you finally talk about how you are feeling and what you want, you need to move towards setting expectations.

What do you each expect life to be like when you get home from work? What do you each need to be able to engage as a family and as a couple as you head into the evening? Most couples aren’t sure what would make a successful night at home, so talking through that is incredibly important.

Do you and your spouse know what the other one expects in your relationship?

What often happens in relationships is we have a picture in our head of what will happen, what a night or experience will be like. We build this expectation up, but we never share it with our spouse. Then when it doesn’t happen, we hold our spouse responsible for not fulfilling the picture in our head that we never verbalized.

That isn’t fair. But it is incredibly common.

3. Learn how to unwind on the way home (or some other way). The reality is that after a full day of working, meetings, running errands, helping kids, you need and want to unwind. You want to check out. I get it. Which means you need to figure out how to do that. For me, when I’m driving home I will use the quiet time to let go of things at work, use some time to pray. If I’m working from my home office all day, I’ll use the time between work and being off from my work by walking around our neighborhood or working out.

You need to figure out what that is for you. What will you need to do so that you can let go of work and focus on being at home?

For many people, we don’t know how to unwind without technology, alcohol or food, and that leads to some incredibly unhealthy lifestyles. I remember talking recently with a leader about how to rest and recharge, and I asked him, “What gives you life? What fires you up and gives you energy after you’re done?”

Stop for a minute.

How would you answer those questions? Do you know?

4. Learn how to be engaged. On top of not knowing how to unwind or recharge, many men do not know how to engage relationally with their spouse and kids. Most men grew up watching a father (if he was around) who was simply there. He did not engage emotionally, relationally or spiritually.

Engaging with your family is being interested, being present. Not being on your phone. For most parents, if they stayed off their phone and social media until after their kids went to bed, there would be an enormous change in their family.

Want to make a big change in your family? Stay off your phone at night.

When you sit down for dinner (and this is still the best way to engage your family because you are all sitting down), no electronics, and talk about your day.

I’d recommend having some questions prepared. Things like:

What was your favorite part of today?
What did you love about school or sports?
What made you sad today?
Were your feelings hurt at any time today? Do you want to talk about it?
How can I pray for you?

5 questions to ask your wife and kids each night at dinner.

While you may get grunts and “I don’t know”, the answers are not as important as your kids and wife knowing that you are interested and making an effort.

4 ways to engage with your family at night.

Posted on Thursday, August 27, 2015

How You Talk about Your Spouse

by Joshua Reich

Recently I was at a leadership conference and was struck by how the speakers each spoke about their spouse. Some of them spoke highly of their spouse, while others were disparaging, even taking a passive aggressive tone as they told stories about their spouse.

The truth is: How you speak about your spouse dictates what others think about them.

How you speak about your spouse dictates what others think about them.

We don’t often think like this, but it is true. We may vent about our spouse, tell a story that makes them look silly or stupid, or even talk down about them. We think, “I love this person,” and our story stems from there. But the person we’re telling the story to doesn’t love our spouse; they may not even know them.

Consequently, all they know about your spouse is what you say about them.

Two things happen when we talk negatively about our spouse:

We don’t realize the full damage our words are doing.
We know full well the damage our words are creating.

If you have kids, they will look at your spouse and speak to your spouse based on what you say about them. If you put your husband down, talk about how he doesn’t come through, your kids will treat him as such. If you talk about how your wife always nags, is never grateful, your kids will treat her that way and believe that about her.

Where do these words come from?

Often when we speak passive aggressively about anyone, there is truth in it. We are masking our hurt and pain with humor. What this does is keep you from experiencing a truly great relationship with your spouse. When you make fun of your spouse, you miss out on trust, oneness and affection. You will each walk on eggshells around each other, just waiting for the ball to drop on you and to be made fun of, to be cut down.

One of the rules Katie and I have for our marriage is that we will never talk down to each other in public, we won’t make fun of each other in public. I want people who hear a story about Katie to hold her in high regard. I want them to think highly of her like I do. This doesn’t mean that we don’t do things that drive the other person nuts or hurt their feelings. We do. We just deal with them in our marriage.

Whenever I hear a pastor or someone make a snide comment about their spouse in a sermon or a conversation, I think, “Why don’t you just tell your spouse?” It is uncomfortable for everyone else.

Remember: No one will think more highly of your spouse than you do.

No one will think more highly of your spouse than you do.

You are the lid for that. If you have a respect level for your spouse at a five, no one else is passing four.

While this might seem like a small thing, and the idea of not picking on each other may seem like a silly rule, the reality of how many arguments stem from snide comments, passive aggressive comments, mean jokes and stories that make people look stupid has an enduring effect on a relationship.

Here’s how I know.

The next time you are with a couple, and one of them tells a story that makes the other look stupid. Now I’m not talking about a silly story like we went camping and got stuck in the rain, and we’ll laugh about this for the next decade; but one that makes everyone think, “This person is an idiot.” Watch the spouse who the story is about while it is being told and everyone is laughing at them. Watch the life go out of their eyes as they are reminded in front of a group of people, “You aren’t good enough. I can’t believe you did this.”

So, why do we do this to our spouse?

For many, passive aggressive comments and making fun of each other is a love language. A very unhealthy, surefire way to kill a relationship, love language. Many people grew up watching their parents make fun of each other. I know one family that when they get together, all they talk about is stupid things people did in the past and make fun of each other. They do this instead of talking about anything new in their lives, which shows a lot of unhealthiness.

Many couples also don’t know how to have an honest conversation about how they feel, what hurts them, things that drive them nuts that their spouse does. So instead of saying, “I wish you would ask for help, I wish you would say thanks for the things I do,” they nitpick and cut down.

In the end it leaves a lot of couples longing for more and wishing a different way were possible.

There is. Start to think: How do I want people to think about my spouse? And then start talking about your spouse in that light. The irony of this is that people have a way of becoming what we expect them to become.

Our spouse has a way of becoming what we expect them to become.

Posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Why Your Spouse Doesn’t Listen to You

by Joshua Reich

It happens in all relationships. There are times when things are going great and communication seems effortless, and there are other times that communication feels like a boulder you are trying to push up the hill.

There are reasons for both the easy and great times and the difficult times. While we may think the effortless just magically happens, it doesn’t. The couples that communicate well do specific things and don’t do specific things.

What are they?

If I had to sum it up, I’d say there are five reasons (there may be more) that your spouse doesn’t listen to you or ignores you. While many people may read this and think of just one gender in a relationship, my guess is that in most marriages both people are doing these. Remember, if a relationship is struggling, it is because of both people. No one bears 100% of the blame. It’s the same in communication.

5 reasons your spouse ignores you.

1. You nag them about the same thing. Have you ever heard someone say, “I feel like a broken record saying the same thing all the time?” That’s because you are, and you get tuned out. Many times if you nag someone enough, they’ll stop listening. Especially if you nag them about something, and when it doesn’t happen you do it yourself. Do you know what you’ve just told your spouse? If you don’t do it, I’ll eventually get around to it. I’ll be angry, ignore you, give you mean looks, but I’ll do it.

How many times should you say something to your spouse about doing something? It depends on what it is.

I would say that if you have to repeat yourself, the issue is not what you are repeating yourself about but that your spouse is not listening to you. Deal with that, not the garage being a mess or clothes being left out. That is no longer the issue; it’s just what revealed the issue.

2. You bottle up your feelings. One reason a spouse ignores the other is because one doesn’t express themselves. They can’t help but ignore you because you don’t say anything, you don’t share anything, you don’t let them in.

This is easy for me to do. I’m a mental processor, and Katie is a verbal processor. When I’m convicted about something, bothered by something or someone, I think on it. If I see an issue in my life or job that needs to be fixed, I think about it and work it out in my head. Katie is the opposite of that. This can lead to her not feeling like I let her into my life or share what is going on. I’ve had to learn to start processing things out loud, but she’s also had to learn to ask questions.

The sad thing is when couples think that whatever the issue is, it will be fixed by one person doing something. You are a couple. It will take both of you.

In the same way, if you are upset about something and your spouse asks you what is wrong, don’t say, “Nothing.” Or, “You should know.” Maybe they should know, but they don’t.

Many times one of the battles that women and men have has to do with women wanting to express their feelings about something and their husband wanting to fix it. A woman asked Katie once, “How did you get Josh to stop fixing things when you talk to him?” Katie chuckled and said, “Before I tell him something, I let him know my expectation. Do I want him to listen, give feedback or fix it. Then he does.”

I know what you’re thinking. I should just know, and so should your spouse. But they don’t, and I don’t. Yet we make it hard, almost playing games with our spouse, and then we wonder why they ignore us.

3. You talk about your marriage to all your friends instead of your spouse. Too many couples are venting to their friends instead of to their spouse. Now I think you should have a friend or friends that you confide in. Someone when you are at the end of your rope you can call and vent to. However, this friend should be a real friend and not a cheerleader in your corner for your cause. The worst thing you can say to your spouse in an argument is, “I was talking to ____ and they agree with me.” You just brought another person into your marriage, and now your spouse is playing defense.

These friends that you confide in, they need to challenge you and your sin. Yes, they can affirm that your spouse dropped the ball because that may be the case, but it wasn’t all their fault, no matter how much you think it is.

Talk to your spouse more than to your friends about your marriage.

4. You feel like it is no use talking. This is when you stop trying. I’ll admit this is easy to do when marriage feels hard. It feels easier to not say anything, to not try. What’s the use? The moment you feel this coming on, that is a sign to press in. The moment you think about taking a break or pulling back, not saying something, that is when you need to push into the relationship.

5. You want peace more than intimacy. One of the reasons people don’t express themselves in a marriage is because peace is easier than intimacy.

A downfall in marriage: Peace is easier than intimacy.

When any couple chooses peace over intimacy, they have chosen a lesser marriage. Is it easier in the moment? Yes, but in the long run it will suffer. This can come from legitimate fear of an argument, a fear of being rejected or something else. Often when peace is chosen over intimacy, it is because of something in our past that is still broken. Maybe you grew up with a shouter and you don’t want that, so you learned silence fends that off. But silence also doesn’t bring closeness in a relationship.

Ever feel like your spouse is ignoring you?

Let me close with this. Often what your spouse is ignoring in a conversation is not the issue. You want to make it the issue, but it is only what is revealing the issue, that they ignore you. That you aren’t connecting to them when you talk. Focus on that.

Posted on Monday, July 13, 2015

2 Things Every Pastor Must Do Before Preaching on Marriage

by Joshua Reich

I recently finished a series on the Song of Solomon, and after talking to a number of pastors about it, many of them expressed a desire to not preach on marriage and relationships and sex. Let’s not forget the fear pastors have of talking about sex.

I think there are two things pastors must do if they are going to preach on marriage and relationships:

1. Get your marriage in order. I can’t overemphasize this. I realize if you are a regular reader of this blog you have heard this before, but this is so important. The longer you are a pastor at a church, the marriages of the church will resemble yours. If you want to preach on something, you must have something to share.

The longer you are a pastor at a church, the marriages of the church will resemble yours.

I know that working on your marriage is hard work; it is hard to make sure you are pouring time into your marriage. It is easy for a pastor to let his marriage fall apart because most people in your church have no idea if your marriage is going well. If your marriage is not what it should be, do some work on it so you have something to share when you preach on marriage.

2. Give your church the principles of marriage, not your marriage. Many times when a pastor preaches on marriage, he gives what he does based off the Bible and can give the impression that how the pastor does marriage is the only way to do it.

When you preach on marriage, give principles of marriage, not your marriage.

I get it. It is easy to say, “Based on Ephesians 5 or Titus 2 or 1 Peter 3, my wife and I do this,” and make it sound like the way you do it is the only way to do it. Is your way right? Yes. Is it the only way to do it? The only biblical way to do it? No. Take what the Bible says, the principles that it gives, and help your church apply those principles, not apply your marriage.

This is hard to do but incredibly helpful to your church. Your marriage is unique because of who you are and who your wife is. Keep that truth in mind when you preach on marriage.

Share the story of how you got to where you are, how you have applied the things in the Bible on marriage. Make sure you make those the hard gospel truths you preach, not what you do based on those.

2 keys to preaching a sermon on marriage.

Posted on Monday, July 6, 2015

5 Ways to Preach a Bad Sermon

by Joshua Reich

Yes, there are such things as bad sermons and sermons that should never be preached.

I’ve preached them, and if you are a preacher, you have preached them, too. They are painful, they put people to sleep, they make people decide church isn’t worth their time (and worse God isn’t worth their time), and they turn people away from the truth.

Now many pastors in an effort to not be accountable for their sermons and/or to not work hard on their sermons love to quote from Isaiah 55:11: “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” I rest in this verse as all pastors should, but this verse does not say, “Don’t work at your craft, don’t put in effort.”

So here are five ways to guarantee that your next sermon will be awful:

5 ways to guarantee that your next sermon will be awful.

1. Be unprepared. Walk up to the stage, look at your church and have absolutely no idea what you are going to say. Wing it. Make it up as you go along. Be all over the map. Preach someone else’s sermon and see what happens.

Lots of pastors preach when they aren’t prepared. I’m not talking about the text isn’t still convicting you, because that will never stop. I’m talking about, you didn’t prioritize your sermon prep time, so you aren’t prepared. You let your week get away from you and others decided your calendar, so you are working on it Saturday night when you should be asleep.

Apart from someone dying or some other unforeseen catastrophe, my sermon prep time is blocked out and not negotiable. Why? Preaching is the most important part of my job. It is when I have the most influence over the life of my church. When else is everyone in one room, hopefully listening? Never. Preaching isn’t all that I do, but it is the top priority of my week in terms of my role at my church, and yours too if you are the main communicator of your church.

One way to guarantee a bad sermon is to be unprepared.

2. Say what you want the Bible to say. This is incredibly common in a lot of sermons and one I have to constantly work against. Often what the Bible says is not as cool as what we want the Bible to say. What we want to say isn’t as piercing, confrontational or invasive as what the Bible says. But no one changes based off what I want to say; they only change through the power of the Spirit working through the text.

This reason is why I started preaching through books of the Bible. I know pastors build their case through the Bible as to why you should preach through books. I do it because I know my heart and tendency is to decide what I want to say, go find a verse that says that or I can make say that, and then preach a sermon. Preaching through books of the Bible prevents that for me.

I know you think people came to hear you preach, and in a way they did, but what they don’t know or maybe can’t verbalize is they showed up at your church to hear from God. You are just the instrument for that.

3. Don’t talk about Jesus, just give good advice. Another way to guarantee a bad sermon is to simply give out good advice and never talk about Jesus. Most would say if you don’t talk about Jesus that isn’t a sermon, just a talk, which I would agree with. But I digress.

Remember #2, they didn’t show up to hear you but to connect with God. They maybe can’t verbalize that, but that’s their heart cry.

4. Don’t have a main point. This is one of the hardest things to do in a sermon, to boil down your sermon to one point. Not three or five, but one. That is all your church will remember if they remember anything. I know we want them to remember all of it, but they forget about 80-90% of what we say, which is incredibly humbling when you think about it.

To make your sermon last longer than Sunday morning, you must think of ways to communicate it in a memorable sentence.

If you can’t say your sermon in one sentence, you aren’t ready to preach.

5. Don’t tell anyone what to do. Pastors love to use Isaiah 55:11 to avoid application. The thinking goes like this: Just get up there, read a verse, say what the Bible says and then sit down and let the Holy Spirit bring the application. Nowhere does this verse even allude to this. This is the one that I often struggle with the most, creating clear next steps. Moving from, “The Bible says this,” to, “So in light of that, go and do ________.”

This is the handle people are looking for to apply the sermon. Do we need to spell it out for people? Yes. Some people will get it on their own and may even get a next step from the Holy Spirit you don’t give them, and that is great, but most people are waiting for you to answer the “now what” question. Like #4, if you can’t tell them a next step, the sermon isn’t ready to preach.

If you can’t tell them a clear next step, the sermon isn’t ready to preach.

Posted on Friday, June 26, 2015

Why Pastors Are Afraid to Preach on Marriage

by Joshua Reich

That may seem like a weird blog title, but I think pastors have some genuine fear about preaching on marriage and relationships.

In the past few weeks as I have talked with pastors about our series through the Song of Solomon, many of them have expressed how they would never preach through that book. In fact, I looked at the websites of churches who “preach through books of the Bible verse-by-verse,” and the Song of Solomon is one of the books most pastors skip.

I’ve already detailed why a pastor should preach on marriage, relationships and singleness on a yearly basis, but why don’t they?

Here are a few reasons:

1. Their marriage isn’t what it should be. I think this is the reason pastors don’t talk about marriage, relationships and sex in their sermons. Their marriage is falling apart. They aren’t happy, their wife is miserable, maybe they are having an affair, are addicted to porn. In short, if they preach on marriage they would be a hypocrite. Honestly, I’ve had a number of pastors tell me this is the reason they don’t preach on marriage, and every time I hear it, my heart breaks. Not only for their church and what they are missing, but also for the pastor and his wife.

They are stuck, and they don’t know what to do. They are sad, heartbroken, miserable, angry with each other, fighting off bitterness, maybe considering a divorce (but they don’t know how to support themselves if they get divorced). They may even be considering cheating on their spouse.

If this is you, you shouldn’t preach on marriage, but you also need to not walk through this alone. You need to take a break from ministry, involve your elders, see a Christian counselor. Something. Anything to work on your marriage to get it on the track it needs to be.

Most pastors don’t preach on marriage because their marriage isn’t what it should be.

2. Marriage, being single, divorce are all private matters, and many pastors fear private matters. Many pastors, believe it or not, are fearful of diving into the personal matters of your life. Money and sex are topics pastors are afraid to talk about, often because they think their church doesn’t want to hear about those things. Honestly, what the Bible says about these two topics is probably something everyone in your church wants to know.

Money & sex are 2 topics everyone in your church wants to hear about.

It is difficult to wade into the waters of porn and sexual addiction, divorce, unhappy marriages, and brokenness. It is uncomfortable and not very fun. But as a pastor, that is where your people live and need your help.

3. They don’t want to exclude anyone. This is a real reason why many pastors don’t preach on marriage and relationships, and I understand it. It is hard when you talk about roles in marriage knowing that a single person is sitting there who finds this completely irrelevant, or a divorced person who begins feeling guilty about their failure. It is hard to talk about being single and purity as your married couples sit there and think, “What does this have to do with me?”

Those are all true.

At the same time, part of teaching your church is helping them understand that just because something doesn’t feel relevant doesn’t mean that it isn’t relevant. I need to know the struggles of someone who is single or dating so I can be a good friend to my single and dating friends. The same goes with divorce and marriage. If you are single, you may be married one day, and it is great if you can learn a thing or two now before getting there.

4. Pastors don’t want to deal with the pain that comes with it. The moment you start talking about marriage, relationships, divorce, dating and sexuality, you are about to open a can of worms that you may not want to in your church. You will find yourself wading into abuse, anger, bitterness, addictions, hurts and family of origin issues that often feel like a web that will never untangle. I had a pastor tell me he doesn’t preach on these topics because he doesn’t want to deal with those hurts in the lives of his people.

Yet this is the exact spot most of the hurt in your church resides, these topics. These are the fights that couples are having, this loneliness is why singles hurt so much at night and why they fall into arms they shouldn’t and pull up websites they shouldn’t. This hurt and disillusionment is why wives get bitter and why husbands aren’t servants to their wives.

Most hurt and regrets in our lives are sexual, so churches should talk about them.

5. Pastors don’t want angry emails. As someone who preaches on these topics regularly, and having preached the Song of Solomon twice in the seven years Revolution has existed, I can tell you that marriage, divorce, dating, sexual addictions, porn and sex are fast ways to get angry emails.

Just tell a wife that the word submission is in the Bible. Talk about sex and see what happens. We challenged married couples to do something sexual everyday for 30 days. Some people loved that, others didn’t. I heard from both. I had people tell me the Song of Solomon shouldn’t be in the Bible, that it really isn’t about sex but about God’s love for us. If you have read through the Song of Solomon, it’s kind of awkward; it’s like being a voyeur to someone’s sexual life. It’s descriptive, clear, intimate and inspired by the Holy Spirit just like John and Romans are.

If you preach on these topics, don’t go into them blindly. You will make people angry. Some is to be expected. When you talk about forgiving someone who abused you or your ex-husband, expect some anger and hurt. This is natural and okay. This is an opportunity for you to disciple someone to be more like Jesus. Will that be easy? No. Will it be worth it? Yes.

Posted on Monday, June 22, 2015

Why You Should Preach on Marriage & Singleness Each Year

by Joshua Reich

Recently I wrapped up a series on the Song of Solomon at my church called You & Me: Being Single, Finding Love & Staying Married.

The response from my church was overwhelming, and the response from other pastors was interesting. I think too many pastors are afraid to preach on marriage & singleness, in particular from the Song of Solomon, but that’s another blog post.

I think each year every church should do a series on marriage, finding love, being single and dating. Here’s why:

6 reasons your next sermon series should be on marriage.

Most regrets & secrets are sexual. Everyone has regrets and shame in their life. Whenever I meet with someone and they say, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else,” it is almost always sexual. It is amazing how we can believe the grace of God can reach every part of our life except our sexuality. We attach something different to it, whether good or bad, that is the truth. People need to know what to do with those secrets, that hurt and shame.
Everyone wants to know what the Bible says on sex, marriage, dating and being single. We often think that people don’t want to hear what the Bible says on dating, marriage or something touchy like money. That’s false. Everyone wants to know; they are curious. Most people know they have no idea how to do marriage and are looking for help from any source. Most unchurched people will give what the Bible says a listen if it might help.
Most people have no idea how to be married. This is true for couples and singles. Most people grow up in broken homes, have no idea about how to fight well, communicate well, serve their spouse, live out in healthy roles, make decisions as a couple. They are clueless, so they make it up as they go along. Preaching on this topic on a regular basis helps everyone, whether they are single or married.
Those who aren’t married are really curious about this. The most comments I got while preaching through the Song of Solomon were from singles. In fact, singles tell me on a regular basis that the sermons they listen to more than once are on marriage. Why? See #3. They want to make sure they don’t do something now that messes up later.
The effects of a broken marriage are felt for generations. If you have been divorced, have parents who are divorced, are married to someone whose parents are divorced or went through a divorce, you know this is true. We often think this isn’t true, and not to make anyone feel guilty, but how marriage goes or doesn’t go has enormous effects on us and our kids, and their kids. For this reason alone, pastors should spend more time preaching on marriage.
We need to communicate a better narrative than our culture. Our culture talks a lot about sex and sexual identity. Our culture identifies themselves based on sexuality (“I’m gay, I’m transgender”, etc.). Sadly this means our culture thinks the most interesting thing about you is what you do in the bedroom, which isn’t the case. Pastors need to help people find a better and more true identity. On top of that, the New Testament talks about how marriage is a picture of the gospel. You can’t separate the two.

6 reasons you should preach on marriage this year.

I think more pastors should preach on these topics. I’ll share soon why many pastors are afraid to preach on marriage, but the longer we stay silent on these topics in the church or aren’t helpful when we preach on them, the more our culture will continue to give a narrative that seems right and good to those in our churches.

Posted on Monday, June 8, 2015

How to Make it to ‘Til Death do us Part’

by Joshua Reich

I would be lying if I told you that marriage will be easy. We all love to hear a couple say their vows on their wedding day, but if we’re honest, most of the time we’re skeptical. We’re hopeful for them, but we know the road that lays ahead for them.

Only a few couples make it to ’til death do us part’ and the ones that do, they do things that other couples don’t do.

How to stay married.

There are three things couples do to make it to the end:

They keep God at the center of their marriage. This is not just spiritual or Christian talk. Couples who make it to the end keep God at the center of their marriage. They grow together spiritually, they take control of their spiritual lives and don’t leave it to chance. They read solid books together, they pray together, they have a plan for how they will disciple their kids (they don’t leave that to chance either). They attend church together, are in Christian community and serve to use their gifts and talents. God is not some figure that appears periodically in their marriage, but is what the marriage and family revolves around. Men are asking how they can help their wife grow and become all that God has called her to be.
They protect their marriage. This is something couples kind of stumble through. They take their vows, wear rings, but too many don’t protect themselves when it comes to their minds, hearts and eyes. Yes, they make sure not to sleep with someone they aren’t married to, but everything else is fair game. A couple who lasts does not do that. The only thing on their menu is their spouse. They protect their eyes, they aren’t looking at porn, they aren’t fantasizing about that girl at work or the guy in the movie. They aren’t dreaming about their romance novel, they aren’t acting out (even with their spouse) in their mind, they act out with their spouse (and only their spouse). They make sure nothing will tear them and their spouse apart.
They pursue each other. Pursuit is what got you married (because you started pursuing when you dated). Pursuit is what keeps a marriage healthy and pursuit is the first thing to go out the window of most marriages. The couples who last don’t leave this to chance, they make time for their spouse, they have a yearly getaway with their spouse, weekly date nights and they do fun things with their spouse. I’ve never had a couple who did this tell me they regretted it. I’ve had lots of couples tell me how they long for this.

3 things couples do to stay married.

More than likely, you do one of these well in your marriage, maybe even two of them. But it is that last one that will take your marriage to a new level. Which one do you as a couple need to raise your game on?

Remember, getting married is easier than staying married. One takes showing up, the other takes planning and effort.

Posted on Tuesday, May 26, 2015

18 Things Every Husband Should Know about His Wife

by Joshua Reich

Being a husband as a follower of Jesus has a high bar attached to it. It isn’t harder than the calling or role of the wife; it is just different. The image is given in Ephesians 5 of loving your wife as Christ loved the church is a hard, almost impossible task (I say impossible because nothing is impossible with God and you have the Holy Spirit in you as a follower of Jesus).

It is easy to feel like a failure around this verse as you look at your own life as a husband. Do I show my wife that kind of love? Am I that kind of servant?

Here’s a simple question that I’ve used to evaluate my own heart and how I’m doing as a husband towards Katie: Is your wife more alive in her identity in Jesus because she’s married to you? That’s what Ephesians 5 is all about, coming alive to your identity in Jesus. Your wife is a gift from God that you will present to God and give an account for. So, Is she more alive in her identity in Jesus because she’s married to you?

Is your wife more alive in her identity in Jesus because she’s married to you?

Many husbands struggle because they try to do things for their wife that they think she wants or needs but aren’t actually in the same neighborhood. Below are some questions that I think every husband should know the answer to at any point about his wife (note: your wife is not a static object so the answer will change yearly, monthly and maybe daily!).

If you don’t know the answer to these, ask, she would love to tell you.

While these questions are focused on a husband towards his wife, here some questions I think a couple should ask each other regularly (perfect for your next date night).

18 questions every husband should know about his wife.

Know Your Wife

A husband should know his wife better than anyone else. Her likes, dislikes, what excites her and disappoints her, her story, hopes, and dreams. He should know what she likes in terms of romance, affection and the bedroom and strive to serve her in those areas, not for what he can get but because of what God calls him to.

Here are some questions to help with this:

What food does she like, what are her hobbies, how does she relieve stress?
What hopes and dreams does she have? How can you help her accomplish them?
How is your wife doing right now?
What romances your wife?
What gets your wife in the mood? What turns her off sexually?
What does your wife like in the bedroom? What does she dislike?

Do you know your wife better than anyone else?

Understand Your Wife

1 Peter 3:7 calls husbands to live with their wife in an understanding way, but to do that, you have to understand your wife. This goes closely with knowing your wife, but as her life changes, kids age and move out, this will change regularly. A husband’s job is to stay on top of these things and know what is happening in his wife’s heart, mind, and soul.

Here are some questions to help with this:

Is your wife flourishing in her life right now?
When is she most productive?
How much sleep does she need?
What does she need right now in the stage of life you are in to alleviate stress?
How is she doing on cultivating friendships with other women?
What areas is she hoping to grow in spiritually (i.e. prayer, theology, doctrine)? How can you help her? What books can you buy her to read (hint women read more than men do)? Here are a few you can start with that Katie liked.

Ever feel confused by your wife. Here are six ways to understand your wife.

Honor Your Wife

Many men speak about their wife, to their wife and treat her like one of the guys. She is not; she is special, more special than any car, boat, possession or your child or career. She is your most precious relationship, a gift from God. Treat her as such. Honor is basic manhood. Let me say that another way if you don’t honor your wife, you are a child, not a man.

6 ways to know if you are honoring your wife.

Here are some questions to help with this:

Are you respectful to your wife in private and public when you talk to her and about her?
Do you allow your kids to speak disrespectfully to your wife?
Does the way you talk about your wife demand that others look at her in a positive light?
Do you talk about her and look at her so that others will look up to her?
If I spent 10 minutes listening to you talk about your wife would I know that she is the most important human relationship you have?
Do you pursue her daily, weekly and yearly? Do you plan weekly date nights that show your love and attention to her?

18 ways to communicate love to your wife.

Posted on Monday, May 18, 2015

5 Reasons Relationships Fall Apart

by Joshua Reich

Healthy relationships take work. Healthy marriages that people want to stay in don’t just happen. Although we think they do. We think two people magically just work together, never fight, never have an issue or disagreement to work through, but they do.

So, where do things go wrong? How can a friendship that was working so well, a marriage that seemed so right all of a sudden seem all wrong?

Here are 5 ways relationships go from working to broken:

5 reasons marriage stop working.

It’s too much work. Healthy relationships take a lot of work. It means being patient, listening, hearing someone out, putting your wants and privileges aside. That’s work.
It’s hurts too much to face their past or do the hard work. As we’ll see later, almost every fight in a relationship is not about what you are fighting about. You are fighting with a past incident, a hurt you haven’t dealt with, a person you see in the person in front of you. They remind you of your dad, your mom, they said words similar to an abuser or someone who you were supposed to trust. Healthy people face their past and in the power of Jesus see it redeemed. Unhealthy people use their past and stay the victim instead of finding healing. This is hard work, this can be incredibly painful. Any argument you have to ask the crucial question, “Are we actually fighting about this? What are we really fighting about? Who am I really fighting with?”
They’re lazy and selfish, they want the other person to do all the work and all the changing. Just like #1, being lazy and selfish in relationships is easy, serving, putting in the work, putting the other person’s needs and wants first takes work. Often too, we want the other person to put in the work to become the healthy person while we stay unhealthy. I’ll hold on to that incident and bring it up whenever it suits me. I’ll remind them of my hurt instead of dealing with my hurt.
They think they are better than their spouse or the other person. Sometimes people are in an unhealthy relationship because they think they are less sinful than the other person. They look down on them. They wouldn’t say this but they hold the other person’s sin in contempt, thinking, “How can they not see that? Why do they struggle with that?” They turn their noses up at the thought of putting in the hard work to reconcile with a spouse or a friend. They will say it is the other person’s fault but deep down, they are the less sinful person they know.
Confuse what reconciliation means. Reconciliation doesn’t mean you are friends with everyone, you might need to protect yourself from an abusive situation, and you may need to protect your kids as well. Reconciliation does mean that you don’t hold it against the person anymore; that you don’t bring up the past, you stop saying, “Remember…?”

So what do you do?

We prefer the absence of conflict to the closeness of intimacy.

Be honest. Many people are not honest about their past, about their hurt or even where their marriage or relationship is. Almost on a monthly basis I’ll have a couple tell me, “We never fight.” That’s a lie. They are avoiding relational health when they think this. They are putting off the hard work of changing for a facade of peace.