Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

What’s Your Type?

Posted in All Posts, Discipleship Tools, tagged , , , , , , , on February 1, 2013 | 2 Comments »

A simple question:

You are almost never late for your appointments
YES                          NO

A question that reveals a great deal about you and how you relate to the world and others!  Marry someone, work with someone, or parent someone with a different personality type – a different take on the world – and the simple things can be so frustrating!

We first encountered Myers-Briggs and other personality tests in our premarital counselling.  I have continued to use temperament testing in ministry and work settings (and refer to it on our marriage) because so much about us is revealed in a few short questions.

What are you great at?  What do you do naturally that others struggle to achieve?  What environment will drive you crazy?  What are your areas of weakness in relationships and life?  How can you best go about maximizing your strengths and moderating (or fixing!) your weaknesses?

You can take a simple, free test in about 3 minutes here.

Then go to www.personalitypage.com and type in your letters.

If you want a more in-depth look, I would recommend the book Please Understand Me by David Kiersey.

There is also another, non-Myers-Briggs temperament testing system that uses the categories Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, and Melancholy.  Beverly LaHaye wrote The New Spirit Controlled Woman, a Christian book using these temperament types to look at types, marriage, communication styles, anger & depression (most of us struggle with one or the other!), and ministry roles.  Those are also great tools!ESTJ

So me?  I am an ESTJ – the Organizer and Administrator.  I am 80% Choleric and 20% Sanguine, just so we don’t forget to have some fun while we are out conquering and organizing the world!

How about you? Have you ever used temperament testing in ministry or your marriage?

* Special thanks to Tom Fuerst at http://thefuerstshallbelast.wordpress.com/ for bringing up temperaments and reminding me about this ministry tool we often overlook!

** I’ll put the link my Resources page so you can find it later.

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Mutual Submission and Marriage

Posted in All Posts, Book Reviews, Parenting, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Submit?!  Arrrgh.  The first book someone gave me on this topic was called “Me, Obey Him?” and I threw it across the room and resolved not to read it…  It sat there for a good six months, mocking me.  Sometimes we women become overly dramatic about the idea of having to submit to our husbands!

It is my personal opinion that our angst is usually a result of misconceptions of submission, or having married a man who does not understand or embrace his part – the part about loving your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it.  (Eph. 6:25)

Another reason for our angst about submission is that the context of Eph. 6:22 “Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” is often forgotten.  The correct context is from the previous verse, Eph. 6:21, which reads “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ Jesus.”

So what does that mean?  We were talking in our small group a few nights ago about this very idea – the idea of “mutual submission“.  Here’s what it means according to Andy Stanley,

“I will leverage all of the power, energy, and resources at my disposal for the benefit of other members of the family.” 

Did you catch that?  It’s not all about me!  It’s about me working for what is best for my spouse and kids.  It’s about leaning IN toward the middle of the family circle to help others, rather than leaning OUT and away from engagement and responsibility.

Here is the question that we should be asking our spouse and kids daily, “What can I do to help?”

Now that can be a scary question!  However, it is a question we need to get in the habit of asking - every single day.  What do you need from me?  How can I help?  That is the question Jesus asked.   It was time-consuming, energy-consuming, unpredicatable, frightening. It was the ultimate question that cost Him his life.

It was an unselfish question.  Marriage and parenting are about learning to be unselfish.

On that note, let me recommend a book that changed my view of marriage – it’s not a practical, how-to book.  It’s a book that says – “Wait!  You are thinking about this all wrong. Marriage is not really about making you happy!”

SACRED MARRIAGE by Gary Thomas, (Zondervan, 2000).  sacredmarriage

Gary Thomas asks a shocking question:  “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”  Thomas’ argument is that marriage is one of God’s primary vehicles for character change.  “If you want to become more like Jesus, I can’t imagine any better thing to do than get married.  Being married forces you to face some character issues you’d never have to face otherwise.”  After all, marriage is a temporary institution (’til death do us part), designed to last while we are on this earth (no marriage in heaven), and destined to help us develop an eternal relationship with God.  Thomas has chapters on how marriage teaches us to love, to respect others, to persevere, to forgive, to serve, as well as how it exposes our sin, and teaches us more about God.   If we truly believe that we are called to holiness and not happiness, then maybe we ought to reshape our thoughts on marriage!

I’m going to work on being unselfish this week.  I am going to ask, “What can I do to help?” and not flinch when the answer comes back.  Will you join me?

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The Question That Made Them Laugh

Posted in All Posts, Devotional Thoughts, Missions, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2013 | 3 Comments »

A powerful truth about love emerges from grammer questions during a Hdi Bible translation session. – by Cathy Drobnick

NTMAfricanMen“The verbs for a particular African language consistently end in one of three vowels,” Dennis Farthing writes from the NTM Missionary Training Center. He shares a translation story that a missionary recently shared with him.

“Almost every verb ends in i, a, and u. But the word for ‘love’ was only found with i and a. Why no u?” this missionary wondered.

Dennis says the Bible translation team included the most influential leaders in the local community.

In an effort to truly understand the concept of “love” in this African language, the missionary began to question them.

“Could you dvi your wife?”

“Yes,” they answered, “that would mean that the wife had been loved, but the love was gone.”

“Could you dva your wife?”

“Yes,” they responded, “that kind of love depends on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.”

“Could you dvu your wife?”

Everyone in the room laughed.

“Of course not!” they replied. “If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water and never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would have to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say dvu. It just doesn’t exist.”

The missionary sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God dvu people?”

Dennis writes that there was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of the elderly men of the tribe.

Finally they responded, “Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, while all that time we rejected His great love. He would be compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”

The missionary noted that changing one simple vowel changed the meaning from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you, based on who I am. I love you because of me and not because of you.”

“God encoded the story of His unconditional love right into this African language. For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable,” Dennis writes.

“This is why we minister here at the Missionary Training Center. This is why we teach grammar to the missionary candidates,” Dennis adds.

God is powerfully at work for His eternal glory in many distant parts of the world through Bible translators.

Read the original article here – http://usa.ntm.org/mission-news/52145/the-question-that-made-them-laugh

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The Rude Tongue (#19)

Posted in All Posts, Taming the Tongue, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2012 | 3 Comments »

“Love is patient and kind.  Love is not… rude.  Love does not demand its own way.” I Corinthians 13:4-5

Rudeness – showing a lack of courtesy to others, lacking manners, unkind.

Remember the Golden Rule?

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:31

Others?!  We don’t even have the time to think about others!  We are totally absorbed with our own agendas!  Why are we in such a hurry that we have to run over everyone?

Know that when you are rude, you have made a very selfish and ungodly decision that your needs or concerns are more important than everyone else’s.  Rudeness stems from a self-absorbed heart and the blatant disregard of the rights of others.

To whom (individual or group) are you most likely to be rude or unkind?  Why?

Think about that for a minute…..  I came up with (1) other drivers, (2) people who are on their cell phones, and (3) my own family members and especially my husband.  Who did you come up with?

Here are some examples of rude behavior – Are you willing to admit to any of these?

  • Cell phone use – while talking to others, at the table, in the checkout line, while trying to multitask
  • Not giving someone who is speaking your full attention (Guilty!  esp. with my kids!)
  • Making fun of someone’s appearance, clothing, or other “shortcoming”
  • Cutting in line (whatever ridiculous excuse you have)
  • Using foul language in public
  • Piling your plate high with food at a party when others have not eaten yet
  • Failing to say “please”, “thank you”, and “excuse me”
  • Not greeting people because you are in a hurry
  • Changing the subject while someone else is talking
  • Monopolizing the conversation
  • Leaving a mess for others to clean up
  • Any others come to mind?

How about this?  A few years ago my husband and I were reading Love and Respect by Dr. Eggerichs.  I really do respect my husband, but apparently my behavior does not always communicate that respect very well.

So I followed the instructions in the homework and asked him, “What one thing do I do that communicates disrespect to you?”

His answer – You interrupt me all the time.

Oh.  Yea.  I do.  He’s right.

So I have been working for years to let him finish his own sentences…  To not presume I already know what he is going to say…  To not cut him off suddenly…  And also not be on my phone or the computer when he is talking to me.

Kindness.  Respect.  Manners.  Common courtesy.

Notice the focus on how we treat other people.  God’s people are to be patient, considerate, and kind – thoughtful of others.

There is never a justification for being rude.

“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment… Honor one another above yourselves. ” Romans 12:3, 10

—

30 Days to Taming Your Tongue, a Bible study by Deborah Pegues

*cartoon by Pirero 10/25/11 circulating on Facebook

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