Category Archive: Marriage

The Role Of Contentment In Simple Living

Posted by on July 30, 2009

We are reminded in scripture that we brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we can take nothing out when we leave therefore having food and clothing we should be content. This does not mean we should all take a vow of poverty and live in a monastery.

We have all been given gifts and talents and we should with passion and excellence use them to the best of our ability to impact the world for good. The point is that regardless of wealth or poverty we should learn to lead a life that is not driven by things that don’t really matter.

In Richard Swenson great book on Margin he list several characteristics of simple living that are helpful:

1. Voluntary—If the simple life is forced, it ceases to be simple. This is a choice based on core values not something that is demanded.

2. Free—One of the key features of simplicity and at the same time, one of its principal advantages is that it is a life of freedom. It is being controlled by that which is life-giving and refusing to be controlled by that which is destructive.

3. Uncluttered—Emotionally we release our worries, we reconcile our relationships, we forgive our enemies and we begin anew each day.

4. Creative—Life is not boring just because it is simple. Simplicity sets the imagination free to work and to enjoy.

5. Authentic—A simple lifestyle must distinguish between the spiritually authentic and spiritually inauthentic. Biblical authenticity includes those things God has told us to focus on, those things that have eternal, God-assigned value: people, love, service, worship, prayer, self-denial, relationships, contentment, freedom, and rest.

6. Disciplined—Restraint is necessary for successful living, and all the more for simple living. Comfort is not a legitimate primary goal—authenticity is.

All Christians have made peace with God through their faith in Jesus Christ but all Christians do not live on a daily basis with the peace of God. This kind of peace only comes as the fruit of a contented life.

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Six Ways To Make Emotional Deposits

Posted by on June 26, 2009

We are all familiar with the metaphor of making emotional deposits and taking withdrawals from another person both personally and professionally.  When you end up taking more than you give to another person you end up with a negative balance and believe me there are serious fees and late charges involved.

Stephen Covey in his great book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us six ways that we can make sure we are making deposits on a consistent basis with another person:

1.      Understanding the Individual—really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit.  You simply don’t know what constitutes a deposit to another person until you understand that individual.

2.      Attending to the Little Things—the little kindnesses and courtesies are so important.  Small discourtesies, little unkindness’s, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals.  In relationships, the little things are the big things.

3.      Keeping Commitments—keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal.  In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through.

4.      Clarifying Expectations—the cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.  That’s why it’s so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table.

5.      Showing Personal Integrity—personal integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits. One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present because that builds trust with those who are.

6.      Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal—when we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need to do in sincerely.  Great deposits come in the sincere words we share with the people we have hurt.

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Resolving Conflict

Posted by on June 17, 2009

All of us at some point in time will have conflict and disagreements with someone else either in our personal lives or professionally at work.  These situations can be painful at times but seeking resolution is the only way to maintain positive momentum in your life.

There are at least three critical steps that you must take if you want to restore the relationship and move forward in your own life.

1.       Own Your Part—In every disagreement there are always two sides to the story.  I have never known a situation where there was not some responsibility for the problem with both parties.  If we think the other party is the major offender then we tend to wait for them to make the first move.  Instead we need to take whatever percentage of the problem is ours even if it’s minor and do what we need to do to admit it and ask for forgiveness regardless of what the other person does.

2.      Talk Person Privately—Most of the time when we are having problems with another person we tend to go to other people first and complain or try to find emotional support.  What we should do is go privately to the person who offended us first and tell them in a respectful way why we are offended and give them a chance to respond.  When we are talking about someone else to another person rather than talking to them the situation will only get worse.

3.      Give Benefit Of Doubt—When we sense that a conversation is not going well and we can tell it may hurt us we have a decision to make.  We can either assume the worst about the other person’s motives or we can believe the best.  Many times if we can give them the benefit of the doubt at this critical moment then even though it may still hurt there will be no lasting damage because we give them a pass because we trust their heart.

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The Importance of Knowing Life Purpose

Posted by on May 29, 2009

In a day when our calendars are beyond full and yet our lives seem to be empty something has gone wrong.  We in many cases have assumed because we are busy the things we are doing must be important.

We clearly have shifted the focus from being as a person to doing and what we are able to accomplish.  Technology has helped us in many cases simply to do the wrong things faster.

The great paradoxes of our time have been summed up well by the Dalai Lama:

“We have more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less sense…more knowledge but less judgment.

More experts, but more problems.

More medicines, but less healthiness.

We have been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more information that produce more copies than ever before, but have less communication.

We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods but weak digestion.

It is a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.”

For many of us we have been living the script for our lives that were given to us by someone else; parents, peers, friends or the culture we live in.  The time has come for us to have the courage to say no and the passion to write our own.

 

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Customer Service At Home

Posted by on May 4, 2009

We all enjoy the experience of some organization or person who goes the extra mile and delivers high quality personal service.  In a day when most companies either put you on a phone tree from hell or only allow contact through email it is really nice when another person is simply pleasant and nice.

Mobile Travel Guide declares themselves as the gold standard of travel ratings and reviews.  They rate hotels and restaurants on a system of one to five stars based on their performance.  When you see their sign and there are at least three to the coveted five stars rating you know that the experience will be a good one.

Every day when we all go out into the public world of work and our daily to do list we interact with lots of other people.  Most of the time, we really try very hard to be courteous and polite to others especially if they are customers, suppliers, co workers or friends.  We give, give, and give to other people all day until we are emotionally spent by the time we head home.

When I evaluate my customer service rating at home I have to admit many times I would not receive even one star much less three to five. I treat the people I care about the most with the least amount of patience and kindness. 

If the Mobile staff were to interview the people who are the closest to you how many stars would you receive?  I am going to do whatever it takes to consistently improve my score.  How about you?

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Definition of Balanced Life

Posted by on April 24, 2009

All of us feel like we have too many things to do and not enough time to do them.  We have priorities in many different areas: our career, family, relationships, entertainment, faith and own personal life.  We also fulfill many roles as employees, fathers, husbands, wives, mothers, and friends just to name a few.

Somehow we have developed this concept that true happiness and success comes when all of these areas and roles are in perfect balance.  It is as if they all have equal percentages of our time, energy and passion.

Realistically we all know that is an impossible goal to accomplish. Our career alone demands a ever growing disproportionate amount of our time and if you have a newborn child in your house all bets are off including time to sleep.

To me a balanced life means that all of these areas as well as our different roles will constantly be changing in the amount of resources they demand.  The critical factor is not to let anything that is important in your life be totally neglected to the point that you are now failing in that area because all of the other things have drained you to the point you have nothing left to give.

When you reach that point and we all do from time to time we must reprioritize our lives so that everything important gets its slot on our calendars.  This will mean that something else will have to get less or be eliminated all together.

Believe it or not sometimes we need to not go to the new latest and greatest parenting conference and just stay at home and play with our children.  Life can be crazy and its demands will change with each new day.

When you have the character and courage to assume the responsibility of leading your total life you will make sure that nothing major falls through the cracks.  Enjoy your day!!

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Personal Crisis

Posted by on April 20, 2009

When negative things are happening in your life and you feel like you are in a deep hole and cannot see how to get out there are three key personal leadership disciplines that will help you get your positive momentum back.

The first is perspective.  When things are not going well today it is very important to put the present in the context of the long look that includes both the past and the future.  All of life both the good and the bad tend to run in cycles.  You cannot choose many times the circumstances about what happens to you but it is your responsibility to choose how you respond to them. 

Adversity in life will either make you a better person or a bitter one and that choice is within your control.  The key thing about your past is you must learn from it but never live in it.  Failure never has to be final unless we let it.

The same is true about the future.  You can choose to watch the news 3 hours a day and live with fear, worry and doubt or you can be grateful for what you have and face the future with hope and a positive attitude. 

The second personal leadership discipline in dealing with change is priorities.  The one incredibly good thing about a down cycle is that it always forces us to separate what is important in life from what is not. 

We must start by not asking the question what have I lost but what do I still have?  I would encourage you to write down everything that is still in your life that is important and when you see it all you will be amazed by how blessed you really are.

Someone has well said the tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon but we wait so long to begin it.  Regardless of your age or stage of life this dramatic period of change we are all going through is the perfect time for you to decide how you want to spend the rest of your life.  If you need some help get a life coach to walk through this process with you.

The third discipline to deal with change is to be proactive.  When some people face dramatic change they choose to live in denial as if this is not really happening to me.  On the other extreme others know the change is real to the point of becoming emotionally depressed about their new state of life.

I must assume personal responsibility to change myself first and start leading myself by making good daily decisions before my life can begin to turn around in different direction.  The only way to do that is to do what you can with what you have right where you are and do it today with all your heart.

 

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Security and Significance Part III

Posted by on February 12, 2009

God has designed us so that the most important needs in our lives can only be met through Him.  His next priority is for us to be in a relationship with our spouse that reflects Christ unconditional love for the church and His willing submission to the will of the Father.

The trap I mentioned in the last post is that we can move our faith to the top of the list of personal priorities but we can substitute church for Christ.  Church in many ways is just like the emotional support we get from our career.

We can serve in an important role and gain significance through our responsibilities and tremendous encouragement from all the people we help.  Although these are certainly good things the danger of religion taking the place of a relationship is always emotionally seductive.

Even with faith at the top of the list and family in second place there are dangers there as well.  When husbands and wives do not place their personal relationship above all other people and the pain of rejection starts hurting both parties they move their remaining emotional energy to the children.

After all doing what is best for the children is a worthy goal and it brings great emotional significance.  It can be easy to justify hanging in a bad marriage “for the sake of the children.”

There is only one major problem, it will never work.  The most loving thing a parent can ever do for a child is to love God in a passionate real way and love their spouse with grace and humility.

Other people and other things can never give us what only God can provide unconditional love and lasting significance.  Beyond that the single most important relationship that we have in this life is with our spouse.  Church and children can be dangerous temporary substitutes but they too will leave us empty in the end.

 

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Security and Significance Part II

Posted by on February 11, 2009

The need to be unconditionally loved and to know that our lives have value and meaning are fundamental to every person on the planet.  We all must have these needs met to some degree and therefore we will keep searching until we find some measure of fulfillment.

We start out in life with our family being the major source of love, protection and encouragement.  When we are in high school and even through our twenties a transition takes place and the two major sources of meeting these needs are now fun and friends.  That is why being a part of some community moves to the top of most young adult’s agenda and they will pay any price to be accepted.

By the time we reach our late twenties we have to start thinking about the future and a career.  For many people the success and emotional support that is offered through work moves this provider to the top of the list.

Family moves back into the list when we get married and eventually start having children of our own.  We even now feel the need to get back in church again so that our children can get what they need as well.

Faith and Family surely will be the answer to meeting our deepest emotional needs for security and significance.  Actually, they can become the biggest trap because even though they are good things they can keep you from the best.

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Security and Significance

Posted by on February 10, 2009

The two major things that all people are searching for in life are security and significance.  Security is the understanding that I am unconditionally loved and significance means that my life has value and meaning.

Most of the time we are searching for both of these needs in all of the wrong places.  We try to find unconditional love in human relationships that all inevitably fail us to some degree and cause pain.

Then we look to our career, church and children to give us the meaning and validation in life that we so desperately need.   Here again although all of these are quote good things and can give us some degree of significance they to in the end leave us wanting more.

All human relationships are important and being successful in every area of our lives should be our goal.  However, the major truth here we are missing is that we can never look to other people or things to give us what only God can provide. 

When our relationship with God is first and His mission for our life is the ultimate measure of our success then all other relationships and endeavors play a secondary role and become complimentary and not primary.

Then when the pain, failure and rejection come in this life they can always be measured against the grace and peace that only God can give.  The assurance that He will never leave us and nothing can separate us from His love gives us the courage to risk living life to the fullest.

In the end He is enough.

 

 

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