I once asked a psychologist who had been in practice for over forty years what is the most common regret his clients felt. Without hesitation, he said, “Selfishness.” Why was I not the spouse or paren...
The story is often told of a man who made an appointment with the famous psychologist Carl Jung to get help for chronic depression. Jung told him to reduce his fourteen-hour workday to eight, go direc...
The two most influential characteristics of the modern self—radical individualism and expressive authenticity—create a perfect storm for relationships.
Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumpt...
One of the most influential myths nourished by the culture of authenticity is that we will be “saved” or made complete when we meet the right-shaped soul, that perfectly complementary person who can f...
A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-suffiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage.
Genesis 29:20, Ruth 1:16-17, 1 Samuel 1:9-18, Luke 10:38-42 , Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1
Emma Darwin, a devoted wife to Charles, did not share his passion for science, nor did she pretend to be captivated by the many lectures and events she attended by his side. On one occasion, as they s...
Romans 12:10, Revelation 3:20, Matthew 25:40, Luke 8:43-48, Song of Solomon 2:14, Psalm 42:7
In I’d Like You More If You Were More Like Me , John Ortberg uses an interesting analogy for an aspect of our relationships. In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner announced the Starshot Initiati...
Proverbs 18:22, Matthew 1:18-25, 1 Samuel 1:, Genesis 2:24, 1 Peter 4:8
On a little study table in my office, there’s a card with a quote from Victor Hugo’s epic novel Les Misérables: My coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my wrinkles, does not hurt...
In his book The DNA of Relationships counselor Gary Smalley argues from countless hours of research and observation alongside the wisdom of the Bible that we are hardwired for relationship. This i...
Luke 20:27-38, Mark 12:18-27, Matthew 22:23-33, 1 Corinthians 15:, Genesis 2:18-25
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Worldviews Collide In this passage, we have a clash of worldviews similar to some that we find today. While the Sadducees were not mat...
Matthew 5:46-47, Romans 15:7, Galatians 3:28, 1 Peter 3:8, Colossians 3:11
Most men and women fall in love with individuals of the same ethnic, social, religious, educational and economic background, those of similar physical attractiveness, a comparable intelligence, simila...
It seems almost oxymoronic to believe that this new idealism has led to a new pessimism about marriage, but that is exactly what has happened. In generations past there was far less talk about compati...
One of the good things that come of a true marriage is, that there is one face on which changes come without your seeing them; or rather there is one face which you can still see the same, through all...
Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love ...
Luke 20:27-38, Mark 12:18-27, Matthew 22:23-33, 1 Corinthians 15:, Genesis 2:18-25
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Worldviews Collide In this passage, we have a clash of worldviews similar to some that we find today. While the Sadducees were not mat...
The tension between autonomy and intimacy is most clearly evidenced in the trend toward cohabitation. Today, between 50 and 70 percent of American couples are cohabiting before or instead of marrying....
Where do you turn for marriage advice when you aren’t religious? This is becoming an ever-increasing question as western cultures become more and more secular. One option is to turn to the London-base...
It happens sooner or later in every relationship: someone will let you down. We have a term for the earliest stages of a relationship: the “honeymoon phase”—that rosy time period when everything but d...
The problem with the myth of “the one” is that it assumes that affection is the glue that holds the marriage together, when really it is your commitment to marriage that safeguards the affection. So d...
Years ago Wendy and I were out to dinner and she observed that something was different about our marriage in recent years, something good. She asked me if I had any insight into what it was. After ref...
One of the most compelling love stories in our time involves a couple who, in the beginning, lived an ocean apart. He was a scruffy old Oxford bachelor, a Christian apologist and an author of bestsell...
Francis Chan tells the story of Domingo and Irene Garcia: He’s a mechanic. She’s a hairdresser. They have been foster parents to thirty-two children and have adopted sixteen. Domingo and Irene are in...
Alcohol is often a taboo subject for many in the church, especially in the evangelical world. Even for those whose traditions allow its usage, it’s rarely brought up in public. And yet, its use, not t...