Tag: comfort

Love Changes

Love changes over time. Accept the fact. We can’t run from it or hide from it. It’s going to change. Are we prepared for the changes is another matter. Can we go with the changes and make sure that we don’t lose the love. That really should be how we view it love. It’s okay if it changes, but we can’t lose it or let it become dormant.

I’ve been married to my wife for almost 9 years now, and even in that time our love has changed. While we were dating, newlyweds and the beginning of our marriage everything was great. We would spend every chance we got talking on the phone or taking walks around town. It might have been typical for two people who were falling in love with each other and building a relationship. For us, it was special and began to lay the foundation for us.

Now, we’re at the point where we have been married for a little bit of time. We have two young children and we’re setting the foundations for our family. Has our love changed from those early days? Absolutely, and it should change as we change throughout our lifetime. As our marriage grows and changes, our love should change with it.

Love should change as you grow as a person Click To Tweet

Love changes over time. Well, it should. It should grow as you grow as a person and it should grow as your relationship grows. There is beauty in the growth and changes that can happen in love. How do you embrace the changes in love?

 

  1. Expect the changes to come

 

Some of the hardest changes in life are when they are unexpected. An unexpected loss of a job, or the unexpected change in a friendship, or an unexpected change in our health are all very hard things to adjust to in life. In terms of love and the love in our marriages, we should expect it to grow. Don’t expect that it will stay the same as when you were dating. Your love should change as you do.

 

  1. Communicate through the changes

 

A lot of couples fail and a lot of marriages fail because of the lack of communication. The longer that you are with someone means that there is a greater need for quality communication. Quality communication is different than just talking to someone. Quality means involving yourself into the conversation. The longer that you are with someone, you have to have more quality conversations because you tend to know more of the details about them. Growing as a person shows us that quality conversations are needed to keep the connections strong.

 

  1. Date Nights are essential

 

There nothing that will lead to the love in your marriage becoming stale or non-existent more than not spending time together. Regular date nights are the cure to that. Date nights will help you communicate and have quality conversations. While each date may not be the over the top, birds singing, stuff of movies, but each date can be an opportunity to strengthen your marriage.

 

Discussion Question

How has your love changed?

 

3 Ways Not to Drift in Your Marriage

New Year = New You = New Marriage

This New Year means a chance to start some new habits. The beginning of each year marks a time where we can start fresh. It’s the perfect time to ignite a flame that may have died down in your marriage. It’s the best time to get your mind wrapped around having the best marriage possible.

One of the biggest attacks to our marriages isn’t an outside person or something like that. We could protect our marriages better if we didn’t get lazy in them.

Threats To Marriage

[ctt template=”8″ link=”Xgmxo” via=”no” ]Complacency and laziness are the biggest threats to marriages.[/ctt]

Complacency and laziness are the biggest threats to marriages.

Part of the definition of complacency is to be content. Our lives, children, work and marriages should have points of accomplishment and pride. However there is a difference between taking pride in your accomplishments and not striving for anything else.

Complacency to the point that we no longer strive for self improvement is unsatisfactory. We can only contribute to our marriages with what we have on the inside of us. If we are no longer depositing into ourselves then at some point, our well will run dry of what we can put into the relationship.

Marriage requires work. Work on yourself first. For me it all starts with my relationship with God. As my relationship with Him grows and I learn more about Him, I find myself wanting to grow in other areas of my life. It is the desire for God first, hat  creates a desire which spills into other areas and pushes me to pursue my dreams and goals.

It’s time to Plan Ahead. I wrote an article to help you Plan Ahead.

Combat Laziness

I’m a firm believer in dreaming big and setting big goals. I always want something out in front of me that I am pursuing. It’s the pursuit that doesn’t allow me to settle for complacency. While our lives may be good according to some, we aren’t looking around us but looking forward to what’s ahead.

Laziness works very much the same way. Laziness is like the brother of complacency. It is the next rung on the ladder to nowhere. Once we reach complacency and we entertain it, the next step down the rabbit hole is laziness.

Laziness can take over a marriage and ultimately destroy it. When we are unwilling to work or put forth the energy into our marriages laziness will take over.

We have to actively fight laziness. Make sure to take the  steps to combat laziness and build strong healthy marriages.

Here are three ways to fight complacency and laziness:

  1. Self improvement: personal development is the key to making deposits into yourself. We should be well-rounded people. We have to have more to contribute to the marriage than our paychecks. Our lives have to be more than what we happened at work today.

 

  1. Have A Goal: There is a difference between goals and habits. The idea that I want to get across is that we need something to strive for. Set a goal or a habit that you want to accomplish.

 

  1. Pursue Your Spouse: I’m a big proponent of the idea of dating your spouse. For many couples the dating process was where we tried to impress the other person. We look for ways to get to know them better, or ways to get close to them. There’s no reason that this shouldn’t carry on when we get married. It may require more working around schedules, but it can be done.

 

Let’s fight complacency and laziness 2018.

Staying the Course

Where Are We Going?

Stay The Course

Many times as Christians we hear the phrase “Stay the course.” While it sounds great and most people would agree its necessary, few understand what it truly means?

Staying the course should start with “a course”. I’m currently writing this while I sit in an airport terminal. There is a hustle and bustle as the sea of people make there way from one place to another all with a specific destinations in mind.

What is the course we are on? Where are we going? Observing the people in the airport I notice a couple of things that I think can be applied to our spiritual lives.

FOCUS

1. The destination is the focus. Whether exiting from a flight, making a connection, or boarding a flight people are walking with a focus. There are signs, “Terminal C”, “Gate 27”, and as people look for the specific location that will take them to their destination they are determined to make it where they need to be. God has a destination and plan for everyone. We should pursue it purposefully like we do when we are in an airport.

DISTRACTIONS

2. Ignoring the distractions. Walking through an airport, people are so focused that they do not stop for the distractions that surround them. We know how important it is that we make it to our destination. We know the investment that we have made whether money or time and how valuable it is that we make our flights. There are so many times that we know God has given us something to do, but we let distractions get in the way. When it comes to doing what God wants, there seems to be a ready made distraction waiting.

 

TIME

3. The time is accounted for. By this I mean that when we know we are going the airport, we calculate the cost of our time. We think of how early we need to leave home in order to get the airport. We think of the car ride there, the weather, and how much time we will need to get through security. When we want to see God’s plan in our lives we need to do the same thing. Let’s think of the “cost.” Do we need to rearrange our schedule? How much time do we need to commit to this to see it come to pass? What other areas of our lives do we need to commit to God and what will it cost?

I don’t believe that staying the course is as hard as we make it out to be, if it’s important to us. We can absolutely finish, whatever it is. Let’s tell ourselves that it’s important and then treat it as such. The things that we value, we make room for in our lives. We can do this! Once we do, we’ll race to see God’s amazing grace and plan come into our lives.