Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Love Dare - Day One



Day 1 - Love is patient.


"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." - Eph 4:2











Love works. It is life's most powerful motivator and has far greater depth and meaning than most people realize. We are born with a lifelong thirst for love. Love changes our motivation for living. Relationships become meaningful with it. No marriage is successful without it.



Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Patience and kindness. Love will inspire you to become a patient person. When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.




Impatience causes you to overreact in angry, foolish, and regrettable ways. Anger almost never makes things better. In fact, it usually generates additional problems. But patience stops problems in their tracks. It is a choice to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions to control you, and shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.



If your spouse offends you, do you quickly retaliate, or do you stay under control? Do you find that anger is your emotional default when treated unfairly? If so, you are spreading poison rather than medicine.



Patience makes us wise. It doesn't rush to judgement but listens to what the other person is saying. The Bible says. "He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick tempered exalts folly" (Proverbs 14:29)



Patience helps you give your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, it chooses to give them more time than they deserve to correct it.



Can your spouse count on having a patient wife or husband to deal with? Can she know that locking her keys in the car will be met by your understanding rather than a demeaning lecture that makes her feel like a child? Can he know that cheering during the last seconds of a football game won't invite a loud mouthed laundry list of ways he should be spending his time?


What would the tone and volume of your home be like if you tried this biblical approach: "See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another" (Thes 5:15).


Few of us do patience very well, and none of us do it naturally. But wise men and women will pursue it as an essential ingredient to their marriage relationships. This Love Dare journey is a process, and the first thing you must resolve to possess is patience. Think of it as a marathon, not a sprint. But it's a race worth running.






Today's Dare

Although love is communicated in a number of ways, our words often reflect the condition of our heart. For the next week, resolve to demonstrate patience and say nothing negative to your spouse at all. If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything. It's better to hold your tongue than to say something you'll regret.



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After completing this dare, please answer the following questions in your own notebook but also please share with us your answers too!!


Did anything happen this week to cause anger toward your mate? Were you tempted to think disapproving thoughts and let them come out in words?




-Taken from The Love Dare by Stephen & Alex Kendrick with Lawrence Kimbrough

19 comments:

  1. Ok, I'll try! Actually maybe I should try this on my son instead, that is probably more difficult!

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  2. Oh girl, I need to work on this one! I'll let you know how I do this week!

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  3. This is such a fantastic post. I am going to have my husband read it. Thank you so much.

    I am trying to take some deep breaths before I let my emotions get the best of me, but sometimes it's difficult. Both my husband and I need to work on having more patience. You have inspired me to be a better person. Thanks! :)

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  4. Very interesting. Brilliant post! I am going to really try this. With having to lose extra weight before my wedding because my dress is a size and a half smaller than it should be I have been a crazy ones sometimes and my patience is limited so I am taking the Dare!

    xo

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  5. This is a great post....patience is not a human instinct, that is for sure...I am going to think about this all week...thanks for doing this...I struggle with having observed a family relationship where one partner was patient and kept silent and was taken advantage of....I have to remember that all relationships are not like that and not to be so defensive.....I am taking the dare and keeping an open mind!

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  6. Rabbi Israel Salanter once said "Not everything that is thought needs to be said." Very true -- if it's not loving, if it's not productive, then keep it to yourself ....

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  7. This is so exciting! Such a great way to challenge ourselves, and grow at the same time! Good luck!!!

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  8. Boy did I need this today! Actually, I need to read it every day so I think I'll print it out. Patience is not one my virtues but I'd love it to be!!

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  9. This is brilliant! Patience is definitely the main key to love and something we all need to work on. I'm going to do your dare this week and practice patience. Thanks for the inspiration!

    xo
    Valerie

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  10. Such a fantastic message! I think all of need a reminder every now and then to be patient with the one we love the most. :)

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  11. This is such an excellent post and great reminder! Thank you!!

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  12. I need to try this on my dog, Hamish. He really is lucky to still be alive after eating one of my favorite shoes. Grrr . . . :-)

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  13. Wonderful post! I think I might just take this challenge up of not saying anything negative. It is definitely easy to just lash out, but I will be watching out for this this week. Thanks for sharing this!

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  14. Couldn't agree more... Patience is an asset in every relationship, and should be practice daily! Thanks for the reminder :)

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  15. Hi sweetie! I am so excited that you're doing the Love Dare! Stick with it...it was really hard for us to complete it and we never actually did. We also had to start all over every once in a while when we felt like we "fell off the wagon" - it was a little tough for us to keep up with due to my travel schedule, but it is a really great book with a great message. You're inspiring me to pick it up again! Have you seen the movie Fireproof? We watched it while we were reading the book...I won't tell you any spoilers, but you should see it :) xoxo Hugs!!

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  16. I found your blog this morning and really love it. This entry could not have come at a better time!

    I've been thinking about what brings two people together, what inspires them to grow or prompts them to clash. And you are right. At the end of the day, it is about love and patience. We actually started the love dare this morning, learning to use different mediums of communication to convey how we feel, learning to empathize and using compassion to understand one another more.

    Thanks for the reminder that these challenges are all normal in the relationship world!

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  17. I am so not a patient person and extremely fast to get angry. I will work on that.

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  18. So good of you to remind me of this...I need to hold my tongue more often or at least think twice before speaking. Sometimes I'm so unfairly harsh on Bret. Need to work on this for sure!

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  19. Would you be willing to team up with me on the Love Dare so we could both share it on our blogs since I have already done this a while ago?? if not, I completely understand...Email me if so...southernm2@winthrop.edu

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