Category: Happiness

WHEN A WOMAN LOVES A MAN Five Keys to Success

Everyone wants to succeed at love yet few of us are born with the wisdom for it. I’m no different and have benefitted greatly from many writers over the years. Two of those are Patrick Morely and Laura Doyle, whose insights on how to successfully love a man I pass on to you ladies today. As Valentine’s Day arrives and your lover attempts to express his appreciation, here are five things that may help as you seek to express yours.

1. Understand his need for masculine approval. “One motive … compels men like few others,” wrote Patrick Morely in WHAT HUSBANDS WISH THEIR WIVES KNEW ABOUT MEN. “It is foundational, perpetual, and insatiable.” It is a man’s need for his dad to be proud of him. You might wish that your approval of him would be enough, but it won’t be. If your man has any unresolved issues with his dad that have caused pain for him, gently encourage him to seek peace and reconciliation. If he doesn’t have a dad, as is the case for many young men today, encourage him to let God be his father and let men of the church be his mentors. He will love you for it.

2. Understand his need to accomplish. A second driving force for every man boils down to “an intense desire ‘to do,’ to master his world, to shape the course of events,” says Morely. Every man has a desire for significance, meaning and purpose. He wants to accomplish something with his life, especially in his work. Let your man know that you understand this, and that you pray for him to find it, and will be his greatest cheerleader in it and he will love you for it.

3. Understand his financial pressure and don’t increase it. Americans are doing a little less borrowing than they were before the crash of 2008, but it’s tough. The pressure to achieve a higher standard of living is relentless and often drives men to load themselves with debt. The best thing you can do for the man you love is understand the pressure he feels to provide you with the best of everything and let him know that a used car is OK, that cheap dates are just fine, and that you can wait for that expensive honeymoon until you’ve been married long enough to afford it.

4. Understand his need for companionship. Men are notorious loners. It is part of their competitive nature not to let others get too close, lest they take some advantage of that position. Yet they also live in a brutally competitive world. They’re looking for a partner in life that they can trust, someone who looks forward to their homecoming, who will nurse their wounds when they’ve been “sacked” one to many times, and who will encourage them when it’s time to head back into the fray. Let him know he can trust you; that you will not take advantage of his vulnerabilities, and he will love you for it.

5. Understand his need to lead, and let him. Laura Doyle, author of The Surrendered Wife, “used to think that communication was the key to a better marriage. But that wasn’t how it turned out … Even though I have a degree in communications, trying for years to “communicate” with my husband never got me the connection I craved, but the principles of surrender did. One of those principles is that a surrendered wife is “trusting where she used to be controlling.”

The need to control is a need generated by fear, not trust. 1 Pet 3:5-6 says, “For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope (or trust) in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham… You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear,” (emphasis added).

Ladies, if you’re in a relationship with an abusive and unfaithful man there are other biblical principles that apply. But if you’re a woman who is destroying her romance by controlling her man I encourage you to let go of your fear, first by trusting God, then by trusting your man enough to let him lead. You will be amazed at the results.

May God bless you and fulfill all of your desires as you seek to love each other according to his design.

WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN Seven Keys to Successful Romance

My senses were assaulted at Wal-Mart last night. I strolled in, minding my own business, looking for our favorite frozen desert, when the smell of flowers and candy and a huge splash of red and pink displays hit my eyeballs like a baseball bat, “Oh, yeah! Valentines!”

Call me distracted, but don’t call me unconcerned about matters of the heart. I’ve been happily married for thirty-two years and doing marriage counseling for almost that long. Those displays reminded me that flowers and candy, important as they may be, are only the icing on the cake of a robust romance.

Here then, for the men, are the top seven things you need to succeed in love. Ladies, I’ll get to you next week.

1. An All-Out Commitment to Christ – (See Rom. 12:1-2 & John 15:1-4). All of us bring the baggage of our sinful nature into every relationship. When the flames of passion finally dissipate, as they always do, the baggage remains. Our lovers often want to “throw the baggage out,” so to speak, but that creates conflict. Abiding in Christ, making our lives a constant sacrifice to God and conforming our minds to his frees him to take out the trash and replace it with real love.
2. The Heart of a Servant-Leader – Men who succeed in love take responsibility for leading themselves. They also take responsibility for leading and nurturing their lovers. Nothing turns a woman off faster than a man who insists on being a boy. Grow up and lead guys, your women will love you for it.
3. Commit to Communicate – Men who succeed in love don’t hide behind the strong-silent illusion of manhood. They take responsibility for their emotions. Learn to say what you need and ask for what you want. Make sure you know what your love language is and how to speak hers.
4. Conflict Resolution Skills – No one grows up knowing how to resolve conflicts in romance. We leave them to fester at our peril. Men who succeed in love learn how to have a good fight, and then have one. They learn how to say they’re sorry, and mean it. They even learn to say that they were wrong, sometimes ;-). After that, they go have ice cream, or something better, with their lovers. You’ll be amazed at how this strengthens love.
5. Commit to Commitment – Hollywood will tell you otherwise, but all loves ebb and flow, wax and wane. Remember this: it’s the promise that keeps the love, not the love that keeps the promise.
6. Practice the Art of Forgiveness – The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that “love keeps no record of wrongs.” Romantic relationships are fragile like flowers. They cannot bear the chill of resentment. They wither under a grudge. Men who succeed at love know that forgiveness lets the sun in and keeps the life-giving water flowing.
7. Work at it Like a Gardner – Loving a woman is like keeping a garden, not like fixing a car. A car needs a timing belt once every 100,000 miles. Men who succeed in love realize romance needs attention the way a garden needs a gardener. Every day he’s there, feeding it with the sunshine of his affection, pulling the weeds of conflict, watering it with encouragement, and fertilizing it with affirmation. And every now and then, maybe when Wal-Mart reminds him, he feeds it the Miracle Grow of flowers and chocolate. A man like that will enjoy a fruitful garden of love. The guys who don’t get weeds.

Succeeding at love is not brain surgery men, but it does take humility, commitment and work. Trust God, practice these habits and you will succeed.

BLUE CHRISTMAS Rx

Depending on whom you ask Christmas is either the best or worst time of the year. For some, “it’s those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call!” For others it’s anything but.

True, the oft-quoted myth that suicides peak during Christmas is just that, a myth. The rates actually go down.

On the other hand, WebMD reports that “Holiday blues are a pretty common problem despite the fact that as a society, we see the holidays as a joyous time,” says Rakesh Jain, MD, director of psychiatric drug research at the R/D Clinical Research Center in Lake Jackson, Texas.

In other words, we’re less likely to do ourselves in, but perhaps more likely to think about it.

Those of us who have lost family members, or been through the trauma of divorce are most prone to the Christmas blues. Reminders of loved ones gone come in as many colors as gift wrap, and the complications of conflicts with step-families and feuding parents are well documented sources of holiday unhappiness. Add to that the amped up expectations for joy, the stress of preparations, travel, shopping, lack of exercise and extra eating and it’s no wonder some of us get grumpy and sad.

So if Blue Christmas is your holiday hymn, here are a few ideas to help you change your tune.

Change your geography. We humans are creatures of habit and highly sensitive to our environments. When we do the same things the same ways in the same places year after year it can be difficult to associate Christmas with joy, especially if the people who were part of that joy are no longer present. Change your geography. Do Christmas in a new location, the beach, the mountains, any place, so long as it’s a different place that you enjoy.

Change your traditions for the same reason. Change the routine. Drop some old traditions and build some new ones. Never baked Christmas cookies? Try it. Tired of baking? Stow your cookie sheets, send the kids to the store and tell them to be creative.

Change your attitude, about grief that is. Grief is like the tide; it comes in and goes out on its own schedule, unpredictable for us. We don’t think it’s appropriate for the holidays so we try to restrain it, but that’s the worst thing we can do. Like an ocean wave, grief has energy and that energy will find an outlet, even if we try to suppress it. Anger, bitterness, resentment, depression can be the results. Better to adopt a new paradigm for dealing with grief, to ride the wave rather than stand against it. When we do that it can take us to new places of healing and yes, joy. “Blessed are those who mourn,” Jesus said, “for they will be comforted.” We can’t be comforted if we refuse to mourn.

Finally, change your theology. Remember that the first Christmas wasn’t all angels singing, shepherds kneeling and Magi giving gifts. It was also Joseph doubting, Mary wondering, Rachel weeping, and the family fleeing into Egypt. They were stressed out by Christmas too.

And while you’re remembering that, remember this: The true joy of Christmas can’t be found in the food, the gifts, the family and friends. These are only the celebrants and the elements of the celebration. The true joy is in the Christ child who came to “save his people from their sins,” and in the knowledge that God on high has declared “peace on earth to men on whom his favor rests.”

BEST CHRISTMAS TRIP EVER

In late December 1983 I was a newly engaged, newly minted seminary student, living in a rented room in Memphis, Tennessee, four hundred miles away from family and fiancé. The semester was over, but I had to stay a couple of days to teach a Wednesday night Bible study down in Batesville, Mississippi, about an hour south. I was living on $400 a month and saving up for a honeymoon, which being translated means I was hungry most of the time, and lonesome all the time in that pre-cellphone, pre-internet era. I planned to drive home to Atlanta the next day.

Rain was falling and the temperature with it as I finished the study, fired up my decrepit 1971 Fiat 128 and headed up I-55 North, fiddling with the radio as I drove. “A major winter storm will be on us by mid-night,” said the weather man, “with up to 12 inches of snow and ice accumulation.”

No way am I hanging around for that! I thought, and pushed the car to its top speed, 65 mph (62 uphill), and roared into town around 9:00 PM. I grabbed my stuff, waved goodbye to my landlady, and headed southeast on 78, the old, two-lane Arkadelphia highway, toward Birmingham, I-20 East, and home.

I cannot remember a colder, wetter, nastier night of driving. And did I mention I was hungry? But I couldn’t stop to eat, not only because I was broke, but the storm, according to the radio, was moving faster than the Fiat. By the time I reached the Alabama line Memphis was icing up and my windshield was trying to, the defroster barely staying ahead of the rapidly freezing rain. Visibility was less than fifty yards as the rain iced up the windshield wipers too, which fluttered every time a big rig passed in the opposite direction, scattering ice as the little car buffeted in the wake. If I can just make it to Birmingham, I kept saying to myself, I can make it all the way.

Every Christmas we relive the journey another man took to his hometown, pursued, not by ice storms, but by tyranny and doubts, accompanied not by a radio in a poorly heated car, but by an oddly-pregnant wife on an unheated donkey. And while Bethlehem was his hometown, no one would be waiting on him with hot food and warm beds. Quite the contrary, the best he could get was an animal shed for his wife and newborn son. Not much, but enough in his obedience, for God to turn the world upside down.

Makes us think, does it not, about how we treat others forced to flee from tyranny and about what our obedience might do.

The drive from Memphis to Atlanta usually took eight hours in that little car. That night it was closer to ten, but none of it mattered when the front door of Mom’s house opened before I reached it, and instead of Mom, my beautiful wife-to-be kissed me and hugged me tight, as the smell of frying bacon wafted out the door behind her.

“Surprise!” she said. “We knew you wouldn’t stay in Memphis, so I came down and spent the night with Mom!”

“Merry Christmas,” I said. It was the best Christmas trip ever.

FINDING HAPPINESS

How do you find happiness? Apparently, more and more young Americans are finding less and less of it each year. At least that’s the opinion of author and political philosopher J. Budziszewski, who has had a ring side seat to rising generations as a professor for thirty-four years at the University of Texas at Austin.

In a recent World Magazine interview, Budziszewski (pronounced Bud-a-Chev-ski) says college kids are running in to the “hedonistic paradox” much sooner than previous generations. Hedonistic paradox is the title for the law of diminishing returns as applied to pleasure. The professor explained, “If you pursue truth and friendship for their own sakes, you will enjoy pleasure. If you pursue pleasure for itself, pleasure recedes and you are likely to find pain. Eventually you burn out … so many of these young people have started in on hedonism so young, and thrown themselves into it so thoroughly, that the paradox kicks in very early.”*

Budziszewski’s words struck a nerve because I had recently finished a sermon series on the book of Ecclesiastes whose author, King Solomon, knew more about the pursuit of pleasure than anyone. Solomon went after pleasure with the intensity of Peyton Manning dismantling an NFL defense. He had more sex partners, more and bigger parties, more financial success, more fame, and more of everything else than most of us could imagine. His conclusion? It’s emptiness, the vain pursuit of a slippery breeze.

So again, how do you find happiness? How do you find happiness that won’t burn you out and leave you in pain? Here are a few of the answers I’ve found. It has less to do with how and much more to do with who.

The who begins with God. Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.” C. S. Lewis said, “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.” I’ve found this to be true. When my relationship with God is first, every other pleasure is enhanced, like eating dark chocolate with black coffee, the combined experience is better than either one alone. Every good thing is a gift from my loving Father and I enjoy it more knowing it came from him. But when I put pleasure first even the good things are diminished.

Worship, the abandonment of all concerns and self-thoughts in praise and adoration, fills me with happiness and peace. Ditto prayer that has said all that needs be said and that does not end with “amen.”

The “who” continues with others: I’m never happier than when I’ve made my wife smile or laugh, than when I see her or my children flourishing in their gifts (she is always happy when she is creating beauty). Seeing others flourish, family, friends or fellow-believers fulfilling the calling and expressing the gifts the Creator gave makes me happy.

Communicating truth, whether in the pulpit, in a song, in this blog or face to face, telling the eternal truths of Scripture energizes me. I’m doing what my Father created me to do, and like Olympic runner Eric Liddel said of his gift of speed, “When I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Sex with the wife of my youth, sex without shame and without fear, absolutely certain that our intimacy and vulnerability with each other is protected by covenant loyalty and blessed with innocence by our Creator, makes me deliriously happy.

The where and what include motorcycle riding in the mountains on a spring day, especially with friends. I find myself singing thanksgiving songs as I throw it through the curves.

A good meal with good friends, helping others solve their problems mechanical or spiritual, these things give me joy.

All the above accompanied by beautiful music performed with excellence, or just music all by itself.

All of these things are gifts from the hand of a kind creator who gave us this promise:

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ John 7:37-38.

If you thirst for happiness, if you long for joy, go to him and drink and you will never thirst again.

*J. Budziszewski: Generation disordered. Q&A | The sexual revolution has left many college students with empty lives, but there is a longing for something more. By MARVIN OLASKY “Off the grid,” Sept. 5, 2015.