Revisiting a discussion

A couple of weeks ago, we had the privilege of recording an interview with the speaker of our upcoming Marriage Conference. I came across some of the notes of the discussion that day with Winston Smith. Winston had some great insights and pulling these notes our reminded me of how beneficial that conference could be for our church.

The words vision, love, hope capture the 3 dimensions and 3 critical ingredients essential to change in marriage.

Vision--People often come hoping for a dramatic fix to problems in their relationship but more often the pathway to change is a long path. They need to get a bigger picture of what marriage is about. Laying down one's life for another in marriage is an act of worship to the Lord and we need to learn to be excited about that.

Love--People need to see the intersection between the love of Christ for me and the details of my life with my spouse. We need to ask ourselves what the love of Christ has to do with communication, conflict, and other marital issues.

Hope--People need to learn to love for the long haul. It isn't about responding well to your wife 5 times but 50,000 times. Around the 10,000 mark real change begins. Christ gives us life giving manna but it just tastes like bread sometimes and we have to manage our expectations to be in it for the long haul. We need to see eternity in the things we are doing now. Even when our spouse is being unkind or unreasonable we need to know the love of Christ and be OK with that.

Great thoughts, and I think that only whets our appetite for the Conference. If you haven't registered, you can do it today.