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Joy is not only something felt within — it must be cultivated and practiced.
Every pastor providing marital counseling will benefit from some basic marriage counseling skills.
Several reasons God created marriage and how to rediscover them in your relationship.
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Healing Love’s Wounds
Every pastor providing marital counseling will benefit from some basic
marriage counseling skills.
Guilt & Shame Are Not the Same
Finding Freedom From Both Guilt is a feeling familiar to us all. Even though we may describe it in different ways — a bothered conscience, feeling culpable for an offense, or a sense of responsibility for a regretful action — guilt is a disconcerting emotion and one often hard to shake. It can feel like a dark shadow following us around, demanding we give it our attention and making it difficult to fully focus on anything or anyone else. Guilt disturbs our peace and pleasure; it calls, it frustrates and it bothers us. Try as we may in many different ways; it can be difficult to push out of our thoughts and feelings. While guilt at its core is an emotional and a moral term full of meaning and purpose, it often is grouped together with another word: shame. Guilt and shame are so often used together in thought and conversation, in fact, that we may easily mistake these terms as synonymous, but that actually dilutes their meaning. Until guilt and shame are properly named, set apart and defined in our minds, our souls will continue to feel stuck. Not the Same There is a difference between GUILT and SHAME;
Making Room for Your Marriage
Down-sizing Your World & Up-sizing Your Spouse’s “By wisdom a house is built,and by understanding it is established;by knowledge the rooms are filledwith all precious and pleasant riches.”Proverbs 24:3-4 ESV My wife became desperate to find a way to get my attention, just seven years into our marriage. As Pamela recounts this difficult season, I was heavily involvement in my work (which I absolutely loved doing) and she was feeling quite overlooked and unappreciated. To her, our home was simply becoming a type of “hotel” that I checked in and out of every day. After leaving early for work and often getting back late, she regularly received the leftovers of my attention and time. After getting married, Pamela imagined we would spend more quality time together than ever before. To her, it only stood to reason, because now that we were going to live together in marriage, we would have so-o-o much more time to connect and get close, right? Wouldn’t that make sense? For me, after getting married I had just achieved a major life goal of finding the right person to marry and actually marrying her. (Check – ). But, in a sense, I was now on to another goal
Improving Your Interest Rate
The Irresistible Power of a Great Question David could predict his daughter’s response. The daily dull ritual frustrated something deep within him. Picking up his twelve-year-old daughter at school every afternoon this caring dad wanted one thing – to simply engage his daughter in some meaningful conversation. Somehow, however, it was getting even more difficult to just get one started. “So, honey, how was your day today?”“O.K.”“Did you have a good day?”“Hmm. . . I guess.” Disappointed and disengaged, a tedious quiet entered the car at this point and enveloped them both the rest of the way home, day after day, week after week. David hoped his questions would have inspired something more than this. Precious moments were passing them by. When he shared his dilemma with me as his pastor there was something he wanted to know: Was the problem that he could no longer relate to his almost teenaged daughter or had he simply chosen the wrong topics to talk about? I was convinced it was “none of the above.” The problem was not generational, but conversational; a mistake often made by parents and pastors. It wasn’t a matter of the topic he chose, but more so of
12 Ways to Increase Your Joy
I know Christians are supposed to be joyful people. And I realize that joy is a result of having the Spirit in me. . .that among all the people of the earth, Christians have the greatest reason to be full of joy. But, sometimes life steps in and robs me of the joy. I know I should feel it, but sometimes I just don’t. The question emerges: Is joy something I should just wait for? Will it just come upon me? I am not alone. There seems to be a great absence of joy in the lives of many Christians and congregations today. Of the several “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5), joy seems to be the most elusive. Many feel reluctant to become overly expressive or enthusiastic about their faith. I’m not sure what lies at the root of our reticence. Interestingly enough, the Bible never recommends that we “rejoice”, it commands us to do so (“I will say it again: Rejoice!” Phil. 4:4). When I first realized this, a few questions immediately came to mind: How can I suddenly have the emotion of joy? According to the Bible, how can it be cultivated? In short, what can I
Healing Love’s Wounds
Every pastor providing marital counseling will benefit from some basic
marriage counseling skills.
Guilt & Shame Are Not the Same
Finding Freedom From Both Guilt is a feeling familiar to us all. Even though we may describe it in different ways — a bothered conscience, feeling culpable for an offense, or a sense of responsibility for a regretful action — guilt is a disconcerting emotion and one often hard to shake. It can feel like a dark shadow following us around, demanding we give it our attention and making it difficult to fully focus on anything or anyone else. Guilt disturbs our peace and pleasure; it calls, it frustrates and it bothers us. Try as we may in many different ways; it can be difficult to push out of our thoughts and feelings. While guilt at its core is an emotional and a moral term full of meaning and purpose, it often is grouped together with another word: shame. Guilt and shame are so often used together in thought and conversation, in fact, that we may easily mistake these terms as synonymous, but that actually dilutes their meaning. Until guilt and shame are properly named, set apart and defined in our minds, our souls will continue to feel stuck. Not the Same There is a difference between GUILT and SHAME;
Making Room for Your Marriage
Down-sizing Your World & Up-sizing Your Spouse’s “By wisdom a house is built,and by understanding it is established;by knowledge the rooms are filledwith all precious and pleasant riches.”Proverbs 24:3-4 ESV My wife became desperate to find a way to get my attention, just seven years into our marriage. As Pamela recounts this difficult season, I was heavily involvement in my work (which I absolutely loved doing) and she was feeling quite overlooked and unappreciated. To her, our home was simply becoming a type of “hotel” that I checked in and out of every day. After leaving early for work and often getting back late, she regularly received the leftovers of my attention and time. After getting married, Pamela imagined we would spend more quality time together than ever before. To her, it only stood to reason, because now that we were going to live together in marriage, we would have so-o-o much more time to connect and get close, right? Wouldn’t that make sense? For me, after getting married I had just achieved a major life goal of finding the right person to marry and actually marrying her. (Check – ). But, in a sense, I was now on to another goal
Improving Your Interest Rate
The Irresistible Power of a Great Question David could predict his daughter’s response. The daily dull ritual frustrated something deep within him. Picking up his twelve-year-old daughter at school every afternoon this caring dad wanted one thing – to simply engage his daughter in some meaningful conversation. Somehow, however, it was getting even more difficult to just get one started. “So, honey, how was your day today?”“O.K.”“Did you have a good day?”“Hmm. . . I guess.” Disappointed and disengaged, a tedious quiet entered the car at this point and enveloped them both the rest of the way home, day after day, week after week. David hoped his questions would have inspired something more than this. Precious moments were passing them by. When he shared his dilemma with me as his pastor there was something he wanted to know: Was the problem that he could no longer relate to his almost teenaged daughter or had he simply chosen the wrong topics to talk about? I was convinced it was “none of the above.” The problem was not generational, but conversational; a mistake often made by parents and pastors. It wasn’t a matter of the topic he chose, but more so of
12 Ways to Increase Your Joy
I know Christians are supposed to be joyful people. And I realize that joy is a result of having the Spirit in me. . .that among all the people of the earth, Christians have the greatest reason to be full of joy. But, sometimes life steps in and robs me of the joy. I know I should feel it, but sometimes I just don’t. The question emerges: Is joy something I should just wait for? Will it just come upon me? I am not alone. There seems to be a great absence of joy in the lives of many Christians and congregations today. Of the several “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5), joy seems to be the most elusive. Many feel reluctant to become overly expressive or enthusiastic about their faith. I’m not sure what lies at the root of our reticence. Interestingly enough, the Bible never recommends that we “rejoice”, it commands us to do so (“I will say it again: Rejoice!” Phil. 4:4). When I first realized this, a few questions immediately came to mind: How can I suddenly have the emotion of joy? According to the Bible, how can it be cultivated? In short, what can I
