Might as well get back to work.

Must. Keep. Going…

What quote, verse or motivation reminds you to keep at the discipline that will one day reap a benefit?

Quote from Streams in the Desert ©1997 by L. B. Cowman (affiliate link because I value the content)

Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines. This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges. Check out the others.

Was this post helpful? Consider subscribing!

Check out the subscription link here. That way you won’t miss a post. And if you really think it’s tops, Twitter it and like the page!

*Picture by Rawich/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Okay, so that might not be a promise I can keep. But chances are very high that you will have a better relationship with your husband if you daily practice these things. Everyone wants to know the short way to better relationship. Follow these keys to a man’s heart and your husband will take notice.

Last week I shared some unofficial statistics about prayer that spurred this post. Prayer for Marriage topped the list of felt needs. It’s no big surprise that marriage, the most unifying human relationship with the greatest opportunity of rift, causes us to seek God’s help.

Prayer makes a difference in our relationships.

After exercising the suggestions from Marriage Tops Secret Prayer List, try these steps to a new husband.

3 Steps to a New Husband

1. Pray.

• Change your prayer. Stop praying about your husband and how you need/want him to be different. Rather, learn to pray for him according to what the Bible says.  See Stop Praying About Your Husband: How to Pray For Him!
• Pray to see specific things that would make your husband feel valued and respected. We have different triggers. Scratching his back may make one man feel valued, but do nothing of another.

2. Create a Respect List.

Make a list of things you can do to show respect for your husband. You may have to set aside time to create one, but keep it somewhere you can continue to add to it on the fly.

 3. Respect with words and actions.

Begin telling him daily at least one thing from your list that you respect him for. Show him respect with your body language. No angry faces, snarly smirks, or inappropriate eyebrow raises. Never say or act in such a way as to belittle him. Belittling scratches off all previous respect on his score card.

Resources for Marriage relationships (affiliate links because I value their insight):

His Needs, Her Needs by William Harley
Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Judeo world view)

How do you see respect affecting your marriage? What resources have you found helpful in growing a strong marriage?

Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines. This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges. Check out the others.

Was this post helpful? Consider subscribing!

Check out the subscription link here. That way you won’t miss a post. And if you really think it’s tops, Twitter it and like the page!

*Picture by  Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

wives should lay all expectations at Jesus’ feet.

That’s a hard one, but it’s the difference in praying about our husbands and praying for them.

Not that my younger self would’ve listened, but I wish that someone had told me when I got married that my husband wasn’t supposed to fulfill my every need or that I couldn’t change him.

Evidence shows that a high percentage of secret prayer involves marriage. See Marriage Tops Secret Prayer List: Discover You’re Not Alone.

Confess Our Need

Each prayer for our husbands should include our confession that

we look to God to meet our needs and accept our husbands as they are,

allowing God to make any changes that he deems worthy. Neither of us are perfect, but God is and he can perfect us.

Let’s begin our attitude of prayer with the truth that

we should be our husband’s best cheerleaders.

And in that role, we can pray to God:

• Make me his good helper, companion, champion, friend and support.
• Help me create a peaceful, restful, safe place for him to come home to.
• Teach me to take care of myself and stay attractive to him.
• Grow me into a creative and confident woman who is rich in mind, soul and spirit.
• Make me the kind of woman he can be proud to say is his wife.

Praying Earnestly for My Husband’s Best

God please:

• Give him strength to lead, time to know his family, and passion to manage his home. (Joshua1:7, Jn10:14, 1Tim3:4)
•  Bless his work and show him daily how to honor You in his attitude and spirit; confirm the work of his hands unto Your purpose. (Ps90:16+, Dan6)
•  Make him a wise steward of our finances and all we possess, remembering that all things are Yours and entrusted to us for Your purposes. (Mt6:19+, Luke16:10+)
•  Help him love You with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and hate evil. (Mk12:30, Ps97:10)
•  Make him quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. (Jam1:19)
•  Protect him physically, mentally and spiritually. (Ps28:7+, Ps41, Jn17:15, 2Thes3:3)
•  Give him the desire to teach and model a godly lifestyle for his children. (Dt6, Ps78:5+)
•  Instruct him and teach him the way he should go; give him peace in the circumstances and integrity in decisions he must face today. (Ps32:8, 1Cor14:33, Pr11:3)
•  Bring him to meditate day and night on Your Word, pray without ceasing and stay faithful to Christ to the end. (Ps1:1+, Ps119:18,73, 1Thes5:17, Hb12:1+)
•  Develop for him strong relationships with other godly men. (Ep4:24+, Hb10:24)

Prayer excerpted from “Lifting My Husband Through Prayer” by FamilyLife ©2006 (No longer offered on their website.)

How can you change your prayer habits to make your marriage stronger? What additional requests can we pray for ourselves or for our husbands?

Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines. This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges. Check out the others.

Was this post helpful? Consider subscribing!

Check out the subscription link here. That way you won’t miss a post. And if you really think it’s tops, Twitter it and like the page!

Their prayer requests and private conversations are loaded with relationship issues. The dominant prayer topics are for their children or spouse.

Marriage Hurts

The marital relationship is the most crucial one in the heart of women.

Recently, after coming home from an event, I was contacted by two women desperate for help in their marriages. Neither attended that day’s event and they lived over 175 miles away from each other. Yet their cry seemed universal.

“My marriage is the pits.” 

After encouraging these women, I had a bright idea.

In the past, I’d taken written prayer requests from women at church events. Why not dig them out of my files, sort them into categories and find the percentage breakdown? I found a correlation between their prayer and their relations.

Unofficial Research

Obviously, this is no official research such as Barna, but it is my findings concerning prayer for relationships.

The percentage of prayer requests concerning marriage was much higher than any other type of prayer need recorded.

• The marriage/spouse requests outpaced the rest at 45% of the group.
• The requests for their children and step-children came in at 33% of the group.
• The remaining 22% is a special case. I grouped them together. Many were for other families emphasizing trouble among its members. Odds are pretty high that many of these requests include hidden prayer for marriages.

Christians don’t often admit we’re having trouble with our kids and we surely don’t want others to know our marriage is horrible. We try to keep appearances of having it together, yet the divorce rate is just as high with believers as it is for non-believers.

A bad marriage makes us feel powerless and hopeless, like giving up. Yet, the reality is that we are much more vulnerable than helpless.

We have a 50% chance at minimum to make a bad marriage good, or a good one even better. We are half the answer. If we choose, we can work to change our relationship. And that’s not helpless. Vulnerable maybe, but not powerless.

We can Make a Difference

Change is hard. One way to make the relationship better is for us to change for the better. Here are some things we can do to initiate the desired change:

• Check our attitude. (Momma was right on this one.)
• Place a guard over our words.
• Understand our own imperfections which allows us to offer grace to others in their weaknesses.
• Trust God to love and keep us safe even if we can’t trust the person who hurt us.

Yes, we are quite vulnerable. But if we add complete faith in God, we are even more effective in changing.

God knows it all.

He already knows the circumstance you’re in and your thoughts about it. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight…” (Hb 4:13). In that case, we should want to discipline and clean our personal and spiritual lives.

Learning to pray conversationally is key to becoming spiritually fit.

Since God knows what we’re thinking, we can tattle to him about others. Venting with God slowly changes the way we think and act, because prayer changes us.

I wrote a training/mentoring book to teach others how to pray in this way. Come Awake has 21 days of exercises and takes the reader though the prayer process while reading the Gospel of John.

When we learn to pray and focus on God, obeying him in all things, our chances of change rises above 50%. In our obedience to God, we pray for the best things to come to the other person and we stop our selfish actions.

We need all the help we can get, because relationships are hard. They are heavy weights in our emotional wellbeing. The closer the relationship, the more weight it holds for possible joy and inevitable pain. I love the line from the movie, The Help. “Love and hate are two horns on the same goat…” And we have to have goats, those close relationships.

Please share what help you have to offer. What are your most pressing prayer requests? How could you change to create better relationships?

Here is a post to help women in make their marriage better: 3 Steps to a New Husband.

Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines.

Consider subscribing so you won’t miss a post. And if you really think the post is tops, Twitter it and like the FaceBook page!

*Picture by David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As discussed in On Productivity Part I — 101 Reasons to Get Nothing Done, I kept ending my work days with empty hands. If I was my boss, I’d fire me. Then I called Lori, a friend and qualified help.

To begin working the system she cast for me I had to change my thinking on some things as well as set up an organized catch-all. She left me greatly encouraged since it will work with my creative (distracted) personality. Here is a short list of some items I am to do:

1. Set Office/Work Hours.
   Sounds extraordinarily simple. But when you work out of your home, it’s not as easy as one might think. The tyranny of the urgent is always ringing, beeping, or crying somewhere in the house. It’s lots easier to go to work in an office where a boss wants to see your body in your chair. Even though I don’t clock in somewhere, I have work to do. I must begin to treat my work time as just that–time for work. I can’t just stop work for everyone. I must say, “No. My office hours are 9 to 2 and I can’t meet you until afterwards.”
2. Keep track of Time.
   Oh, logging time sounds easy enough until you try it. It feels like punching a card. A discipline that’s seems to threaten my freedom to creatively drift from project to project. Obviously it’s not that strict, but practically logging the time I work on the different projects is, well, a discipline for me. The end result is awesome though. I’ll know for certain the average time it takes to write a blog post, a print article and the first draft of a book. I’d be able to give a realistic answer instead of a creative, made-up number of hours. Oh, and I’d get a great sense of accomplishment in seeing the small tasks completed that contribute to my long term goals. A big win!
3. Set up auto email rules.
   I’ve heard this before, but never saw the value until now. I re-read and open the same email multiple times on two different devices, my iPhone and my Mac. To cut down on email decisions and actions I set up rules on my MAC (In Apple Mail, create mailboxes on your MAC, then go to Mail Preferences and create rules to directly send mail to those boxes.) I have blog emails and other things I want to read automatically sent to my reading box (I typically read these on my iPhone while waiting in Wal-mart lines.) I created another rule for spammy and salesy stuff. Once a day I go to those boxes and delete them all. And my email inbox stays manageable. Yippee!!
4. Do bookkeeping once a week.
   Yuk, books and finances. Not my favorite thing. On a set day each week, Lori STRONGLY stressed my need to check online bank accounts and log transactions in my Quickbooks. Sounds better than once a year just before tax season. Think of the stress I’ll save myself. (Haven’t yet figured out how to put revolving tasks on my Franklin Covey style To-Do list. I could set an alarm on my calendar for the weekly and monthly tasks. Any other suggestions here?)
5. Create a Binder.
   This is my catch-all, my brain-so-I-can-stop-thinking, the place-to-find-every-important-thing binder. The binder will free my mind from having to remember so much stuff. Any information that needs quick recall will be at the flip of my fingers. It will grow to hold long term projects and log time sheets, links to useful online tools and blog post resources, login info, lists of social networks and bio update lists, website change-log, speaker bureaus, bookkeeping spreadsheets, etc. Whatever information I could possibly need for this business of ministry is to be in this Binder for easy retrieval. No more searching. I suddenly feel like this binder will be my life between plastic-coated cardboard!
6. Use small notebook.
   I’ve been keeping a to-do list in a spiral notebook and using Franklin Covey’s system of prioritizing with A, B, C and 1, 2, 3, but now I’m adding a new element. I will still date each day, but not forward each task. That was cumbersome. (Since I wasn’t getting much done, I’d have to recopy much of the list!) This time I’ll include bold check-mark boxes in front of each item to delineate when one task starts and the other ends. Long term projects are moved to my “life” binder and broken into small tasks which will be added to this to-do list as they become the Work-on-now tasks. I’ll eat that elephant one bite at a time. I’ll note the time it takes to complete the tasks on this list then transfer to Binder log sheets once a week. During this once a week updating process, I’ll go back and evaluate the tasks not completed. If still important, I’ll highlight them in order to make sure they get done. Or scratch them off.

Sounds simple, huh? For you maybe, but for me it’s a major shift and discipline set. I can see how I could actually be more productive. I’ve gained hope. And sometimes hope accompanied by the belief and accountability of a good friend can be all the motivation we need to make drastic changes.

What methods of getting things done do you use? Where is your weakness and biggest need for change? Who can you ask for help?

Part I: 101 Reasons to Get Nothing Done

This post is part of the blog series Insights into Ministry and Leadership. Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines.

Consider subscribing so you won’t miss a post. And if you really think the post is tops, Twitter it and like the FaceBook page!

*Picture by David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My time and effort gets me nothing. Nothing, but 101 reasons why I can’t get things done. My desk might be one reason.

It’s a mess. I know. My workspace usually looks worse. So bad that I often take the MAC Air and head to clearer places.

My computer files are more messed up than the desk.

And please, don’t even look at my email inbox.

But the most cluttered part is my mind. It’s exponentially worse off than both my space and schedule combined.

The outcome is lots of stress and no progress. My productivity has been ZERO for too long. If I was my boss, I’d fire me.

The reality is that the creative part of me generates more ideas (tasks) than the practical homeschooling mom, household manager, and minister’s wife could possibly get done. I still have to perform the regular duties of cooking, cleaning, gardening, teaching, mentoring, leading, speaking and just being a wife and a friend. Add on the creative part of ministry and the business of it and I’m done.

Tired.

Sick and tired of not getting things done. By itself, my Franklin Covey way of prioritizing tasks in my little notebook wasn’t working anymore. Where is that saw that needs sharpened anyway? I need some drastic help.

Therefore, I looked into what other productive people do to get things done. After trying several systems, Michael Hyatt applauds David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and Nozbe, a task management system based upon the book’s principles. I researched the program and it sounds awesome. Check out Mr. Allen’s desk. But I can’t afford Nozbe’s monthly fee to get my life together.

*picture gettingthingsdone.com

Overwhelmed and lusting after productivity, I ended up doing what every overworked preacher’s wife does.

I whined.

Got slightly depressed.

And conducted an intense search of the house for dark chocolate!

Afterward, I called a friend for help.

Lori is a smart business woman who coaches small business owners to be more productive. (Surely she could help.) After sitting down with me for an hour and listening to my whine and never ending to-do lists, she quickly concluded how I should handle my tasks. (Btw, she didn’t see my desk or she’d have given up before starting.)

Stay tuned for the next post where I’ll share, to the best of my understanding, the system Lori said would help me. Her system might work for you too.

How do you deal with your weaknesses? What does your workspace look like? What excuses do you have for not getting things done?

Part II: 6 Tips to Get More Done System

This post is part of the blog series Insights into Ministry and Leadership. Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines.

Consider subscribing so you won’t miss a post. And if you really think the post is tops, Twitter it and like the FaceBook page!

The depiction of suffering in “The Passion of Christ” was real.
*picture from HollywoodJesus.com

When I think of all that he endured and that he did it for me, I am humbled. I was stuck in the trap of my unrighteousness and evil bents, yet he chose me worthy to sacrifice all he had for me. Only a deep love would do such a thing. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

This day ought to be called Humbled Friday.

While the day might not warrant the term “good,” the results of what Jesus did creates every kind of good for us. “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). By his coming back to life Sunday morning, he gained victory over death and sin. Then he offered us access to God and life with him: a great privilege and benefit to us!

Why do you think we call this day good? How does the real pain and death Jesus willingly endured affect you?

This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges. Check out the others. Interested in guest posting, check out the guidelines.

Consider subscribing so you won’t miss a post. And if you really think the post is tops, Twitter it and like the FaceBook page!

Thoughts of beauty were on my mind because of a previous Google question that brought a reader to my site. Check out the post I wrote in response to the question, “Does a Minister’s Wife have to be beautiful?”

Requirements of ministers wives aside, I often tell the women I meet they’re beautiful. But during this event, a young woman passed by then turned around to say, “You’re a beautiful woman.”

I scraped myself up. Me, someone with loosening skin and a few extra years. You’d a thought I just won a million bucks. All of a sudden my feet in those pointy heels didn’t hurt anymore. I walked taller, smiled bigger and, well, fulfilled those prophetic words. I became beautiful. I couldn’t pick that giver of beauty out of a crowd of two, but if you’re that woman, “Thank You!”

The Value of Beauty

Isn’t it odd how much better we feel when we think others value our beauty? We actually feel valuable. Oh, I know it’s a mind thing, but somehow it shows in our countenance and behavior. The link between beauty and value exposes a great feminine need. One that’s almost as important as food and water. Girls need a regular diet of words, actions and attitudes that make them feel beautiful. For without this need being met, our spirits languish like that of a newborn left on cold hard surfaces, never to be held in a warm embrace. Something within just dies.

We are bombarded all day with ugly, unkind and you-don’t-measure-up influences, some that stare at us from the face in the mirror. Let’s find some uplifting reinforcements of the beauty that God created us to be.

Ways to Help Girls Know They’re Pretty

Here’s a short list of a few thoughtful ways to make the girls in your life glow in beauty. We can become like the woman at the event and be a giver of beauty to girls that desperately need Read through these and add more in the comments.

• Out of the blue, tell her she’s amazing. Recognize each time they dress nice and compliment them on how beautiful they look.
• Acquire for them an inexpensive little something (flower, lotion, costume jewelry, flip-flops, whatever) and say, “This was so pretty. It reminded me of you and I had to bring it to you.”

My husband bought a single red rose and placed a little ruby ring in its blossom then brought it home unexpectedly. He said it reminded him of me: spicy, beautiful, prickly dangerous at times and, well, … I’ll not say the other one. Some things are best kept secret.

• Notice her effort to create something beautiful (a meal, room decor, craft, etc.) and make a big deal about how she creates such beauty.
• Hug her while acknowledging the beautiful way she relates to people: nurturing, caring and handling various kinds of people.
• Work for her or together with her while saying she’s worth it, or beautiful when focused on the work. She will know she’s valued.
• Enjoy time spent with her doing something she likes or nothing at all.

Quite unintentionally written, but these actions remind me of the 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. In Chapman’s book, you could read up on his 5: words, time, touch, gifts and acts of service.

What else can you add to the list? How have you encouraged girls in your circle? If female, in what ways have you received positive hits to your beauty/value meter?

If you have a topic or suggestion you would like to discuss please contact me here or make a comment on this post! Or if you’d like to guest post, check out the guidelines.

This post is part of the blog series Insights into Ministry and Leadership. Check out the others.

Was this post helpful? Consider subscribing!
Check out the subscription link here. That way you won’t miss a post. And if you really think it’s tops, Twitter it and like the page!

Was it a man knowing he would eventually fill the role of a minister? Or a woman about to become a minister’s wife? Could it have been a woman already performing as a minister’s wife who feels pressure to be what she thinks she isn’t? Sadly, this is common because someone somewhere didn’t value her and may have told her she was less than desirable. These wounds cut to the core of a woman no matter its source.

Source of Beauty

Without knowing the source of the question, I’ll attempt to answer it by starting with the origin of a woman’s beauty. Since God created woman, he’s the designer of her beauty. Each and every characteristic as well as her God given image displays his handiwork. It is her natural beauty. But when God redeems a woman, his beauty comes to reside in her. When she intently follows him, God gives her a supernatural beauty that shines similar to Moses’ veiled face (Ex. 34:30). A woman living in obedience to God becomes uncommonly desirable with an unexplainable glow. The source of original beauty is God.

God backs up these views about beauty in the scripture. “Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised” (Pr 31:30). In another reference, those who carry the Good News in obvious obedience to God have beautiful feet (Rm 10:15).

Common Looks Becomingly

With obedience to God, a common woman becomes uncommonly beautiful. The French have a word for this phenomenon. Belle laide means “a beautiful ugly woman, a woman who is attractive though not conventionally beautiful.”^[1]

So “Should a minister’s wife be beautiful?” Well I believe, in light of God’s supernatural work, the answer is an absolute yes. Should the trappings of our culture’s view of beauty and a woman’s value be weighed in the decision? No.

Thinking Deeper

But I don’t think the questioner wanted a simple yes or no answer. They may have wanted some thoughts to ponder or even actions to take. So, if you’re looking for a few suggestions, here are some to consider:

• Single men – Seek a woman who is so in love with Jesus that you feel like a third wheel.
• Married men – Lead the family and serve them while showing them how to obey and serve God. Treat your wife like a beautiful queen. Most will respond by behaving more beautifully.
• And for women whether single, married or married to a minister, I suggest you keep practicing the regular beauty treatments, with moderation. Yet give your all in seeking after the perfect lover, Jesus, who will make you remarkably beautiful.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think. Let me know how others respond differently to you when you practice these “beauty” treatments.

(The Help where God uses ordinary people to make the impossible possible.)

I’m just an ordinary person that tends to think “I got this.” and work to make things happen. But when there’s a hitch in the plan or the task seems impossible, I ask for God’s help. I beg him to come to my aid much like the father in Mark 9 who sought God for his sick son.

The father struggled in his faith about the seemingly impossible health and healing of his son. He says:

“If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”
And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”
Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:22-24)

The man acknowledged his unbelief. Most of us suffer from the same malady. After asking God for help, we don’t believe he’ll do anything. We’ll keep on trying to do it for him, get someone else to help him, and wait impatiently and anxiously always worrying how he will fix it. We need help

Three Effective Actions to Get God’s Help

1. Pray Begin a conversation with God. He asks us to pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). For further teaching on how to pray in a way that makes a difference, see Come Awake.
2. Believe God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the one who parted the Red Sea, caused the blind to see and raised Jesus from the dead. He can do what to us is impossible. We must believe him and what he can do. My issue is that I believe he can, but sometimes I’m not certain he will. I pray, “I believe; help my unbelief” and learn to trust him and believe.
3. Obey Not always, but sometimes we have things we are to do to complete the work of God’s helping us. God isn’t going to do everything for us, we must put effort into it’s accomplishment as well. Ours is to follow God’s way and do all he asks us to do, then trust him to help us. “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this” (Ps 37:5).

Your ability to obtain God’s help is tied to your commitment to following through with these actions. His desire is to help us. We must do our part.

Do you have some impossibility before you? Do you struggle in your belief? How do you seek God’s help? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

As always, if you have a topic or suggestion you would like to discuss please contact me here make a comment on this post!

This post is part of the blog series A Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges if you enjoyed it you can check out the others.

Was this post helpful? Consider subscribing!
Check out the subscription link here. That way you won’t miss a post. And if you really think it’s tops, Twitter it and like the page!