Monday, February 16, 2026

FIVE SIMPLE SECRETS TO A HEALTHY MARRIAGE


#1 - COMMUNICATE AND COORDINATE

 

                                                                     (At Toledo Zoo)

(I'm re-posting this to keep it in play.)

In August Linda and I celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary. We are both thankful for having these wonderful years of life together!

We're not the perfect marriage. Acknowledging this helps us be better life partners.

One thing that has helped us is that we communicate about and coordinate our busy schedules, meetings, desires, and obligations. We do this every day, usually in the morning, or the evening before.

We ask each other questions, such as...

"What is your schedule today?"

"What do you want to get done today?"

"How can I help you today?"

"What time will we have together today?"

"Are you OK with me doing this (_______) today?"

"What do we need to do together today?"

"What commitments do we have this week?"

"What shall we do for dinner tonight?"

"What do you need to talk about?"

We ask questions like these. Because we do this all the time, responding to them often takes little time.

We want to share expectations, and be on the same page.

We let each other know what we are up to. For example, Linda might tell me, "I'm doing laundry this morning. Do you have clothes that need washing?"

I always let her know where I am going. Today, e.g., I said, "I'm going to Panera Bread to get a coffee." And later, I said, "I'm going upstairs to work in the office."

This is not rocket science. We always let each other know what we are doing and where we are going, even if it's just going outside to water the flowers. And, we are willing to give up our agendas for the sake of the other.

Linda is excellent at keeping a datebook. We meet together, and she brings her datebook with her. She says, "Remember, John, that we have the graduation party this Saturday at 1."

We communicate like this because we are not single anymore. We are doing life together. 

Coordinating our schedules is a way of honoring one another. In doing this, expectations become clear. Uncommunicated expectations breed marital conflict.

For us, this is one secret to a healthy marriage.


#2 - Say "Thank you" (Often)

 


                                                       (Saugatuck, MI)

In summer 2024 Linda and I celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary. We drove four hours to a Michigan beach town and spent four days together.

We walked, talked, sat on the beach, read books, had some good meals, sat by the pool, browsed, shopped, ate some fudge, and I had cherry peach pie. On the way home Linda led us in a praying time.

We gave gifts. And said the words, "Thank you."

"Thank you" is part of our marital arsenal. "Thank you" is a super weapon. We say these words, to each other, a lot.

"Thank you for the gift."

"Thank you for mowing the lawn."

"Thank you for the tuna salad sandwich."

"Thank you for doing the dishes."

"Thank you for finding my phone."

"Thank you for the reminder."

"Thank you for washing the clothes."

"Thank you for making the bed."

"Thank you for vacuuming." 

"Thank you for the flowers."

"Thank you for all you do for me."

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

When people fail to say "Thank you" it can come off as entitlement. We see the entitlement disease in Luke 17:11-19.

11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[a] met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” 

And as they went, they were cleansed.

15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 

19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

When you stop saying "Thank you," often, you are taking the other person for granted.

Saying "Thank you" places you in a vulnerable position. This is why some don't say the words.

We don't have the perfect marriage. But we have both told God "Thank you," countless times, for bringing us together. We spoke these words again, both to God and to each other, as we celebrated 51 years.

Saying "Thank you" is one of our little secrets to a healthy marriage.


#3 - ALL WE HAVE TOGETHER BELONGS TO GOD

 



When I married Linda I had some debt. I had student loans to cover tuition and housing for my freshman and sophomore years

I spent the money. I also flunked out of college at the end of my sophomore year. 

I eventually got back in college. But I had to pay off the wasted student loan. 

When I married Linda, we both understood that we were now "one flesh." We were a team. We did not believe that she had her money, and I had my money. Instead, all that we had, collectively, was God's, with us as the stewards of what we have.

And of what we owed. My loan indebtedness was now Linda's as well.

For us, it goes like this. If I make a dollar a week, and Linda makes $1000 a week, together we make $1001. And it all belongs to God. We are then called to be good stewards of what God has given us.

A huge part of this stewardship was, and still is, keeping a budget. That we both look at together, and both agree on.

This means we agree on how the money is to be spent. In addition to a mortgage, car payment, utilities, food, clothing, insurance, and other essentials (the loan!), we sometimes had extra money. We did not spend this extra money without talking together about it. Early in our marriage, we both agreed that neither of us would make a purchase over $50 without asking the other if this seemed right to them.

We continue this to this day. This has served us well in our fifty-one years of marriage!

The key principles are:

1) Everything we have belongs to God.

2) We are the stewards of what God has given us.

3) We have a monthly budget.

4) We communicate about finances.



#4 - FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER

 


1971.

I had been a Jesus-follower for a year. 

God had led me to not date anyone, for the purpose of focusing on knowing Jesus. What a great and important year that was for me!

1972. That's when I met Linda, and slowly, carefully, began to fall in love with her. 

Our relationship was Jesus-centered. This included abstaining from sexual activity, even kissing. We were not trying to use each other to get personal pleasure. Were we "dating?" If so, not in the usual cultural way. It was beautiful! And, I still had so much to learn about how to love another person as Jesus loves them.

It was going so well that I thought we would never disagree and argue. That bubble eventually got burst. We had our first argument.

I cannot remember what it was about. I do remember engaging in some powerful logical reasoning. Surely, I thought, Linda will see that I was right, and she was wrong. But that bubble also got burst, when God told me, "John, she's right. You are wrong."

As I heard those words, I knew they were correct. I'm wrong. This knowledge created another problem, which was: I never admitted it when I was wrong. So, I kept arguing.

I have the powerful gift of defending myself and attacking the other person, even when I know I am wrong. I had taken and aced the "Argumentation and Debate" class at Northern Illinois University. When the class was over the professor, who led the university Debate Team, invited me to be on the team. I chose not to, but my overconfident ego was expanding.

As I was pressing my argument against Linda, God told me this. "John, not only are you wrong in your argument, you also are wrong in continuing to argue when you know you are wrong."

That's when I came to my senses. I had two things to say to Linda.

  1. I am wrong, you are right.
  2. I kept arguing even though I knew I was wrong and you are right.
And then, these words came out of my mouth: "Would you forgive me for doing that."

That was new territory for me. I thought Linda might exit our relationship. Who would want to be with someone who, when they were wrong, could not admit it?

Linda said, "John, I forgive you."

And then we laughed. A lot. 

We've been married fifty-two years, this coming summer. Admitting we are wrong when we are wrong is built into the DNA of our marriage.

We have both said, to each other, these words, countless times.

"I was wrong."

"You were right."

"Please forgive me for talking that way to you."

"Please forgive me for not listening to you."

"I love you."

"I forgive you."


FOR MORE HELP SEE:

Forgive, by Tim Keller

Caring Enough to Forgive, by David Augsburger

Forgive and Forget, by Lewis Smedes


#5 - SERVE ONE ANOTHER

 




Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21.


In doing life, Linda and I do not compete against each other. Because...

we are on the same team.

We do life together.

We don't keep score. 

For example, when I had my hip replacement surgery, I recovered at home. We rented a surgical bed, where I slept. During my rehab, Linda waited on me. And kept the house clean. And did the shopping. And meal planning and making. With love and joy.

When there are times when Linda is sidelined with illness, I do the same for her. I serve her, and do not keep a mental record of all the hours I am putting in. We don't owe each other anything. That's how it is, when you serve one another out of love, and for the team.

'Entitlement' is not in a servant's mental lexicon.

"Who serves the most?" We have never entertained this question.

We are not perfect. And yet, we defer. We are always asking questions like these.

"Can I get you anything?"

"How can I help you?"

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Let me do this for you."

And, always humming in the background, is this: "How can we help each other flourish?"



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Sunday, February 15, 2026

Some Hearts are Warehouses of Evil


I'm writing this post mostly for me. 

Words have great power. Therefore, use words carefully.

Thoughtless words are destructive weapons.

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. —Proverbs 12:18

A person's words are indicators of their heart. Evil words indicate an evil heart. Some hearts are warehouses of evil.

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 
- Luke 6:45

God is adding up our words. Every careless word we speak is accounted for. Listen to Jesus, and the weightiness he attributes to the words that come out of our mouths.

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
- Matthew 12:36-37

If a person does not have control of their mouth, their worship is good for nothing. 

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.
- James 1:26 

Slanderous, gossiping, mocking words slither and slime forth from the kingdom of darkness.

A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. 
- James 3:4–6, The Message

One who claims to love Jesus, but curses people, are actors, hypocrites.

The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! 
- James 3:7–10

I'm writing this on a 3X5 card and carrying it with me today.


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Saturday, February 14, 2026

LOVE - Some things I have written...

 

                                                   (Linda and me)
Today is Valentine's Day! Here are some posts I've written about love.






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Friday, February 13, 2026

Love Always Protects



My back yard

στέγω,v \{steg'-o}
1) deck, thatch, to cover 1a) to protect or keep by covering, to preserve 2) to cover over with silence 2a) to keep secret 2b) to hide, conceal 2b1) of the errors and faults of others 3) by covering to keep off something which threatens, to bear up against, hold out against, and so endure, bear, forbear

Love always protects. (1 Corinthians 13:7)

In my late teens, whenever I had a date with a girl, I would be thinking, "Will she have sex with me?" One time I was with this girl in the back seat of a car and started putting physical moves on her. She pushed my hand away. She wanted none of that. I didn't understand, and tried to convince her otherwise. That was the last time she went out with me. 

Good for her! She set a boundary. 

 Feeling disrespected, she wanted nothing more to do with me. I was so self-centered that the concepts of honor and respect were not part of my DNA. I did not know love, or how to love and be loved. I did not understand that love always protects.

The Greek verb stego means, "to bear." This does not mean love "bears up under things," but that "love bears all things up." "Love carries everything." (Lewis Smedes, Love Within Limits, 94) Lewis Smedes writes:

"Love hates a scandal... [L]ove drives us away from scandal for deeper reasons than propriety and good taste. Scandal hurts people; and love hates everything that hurts people. This is why a loving person is turned off by gossip and rumor - out of concern for the people being whispered about." (Ib., 95)

Love carries our sorrows. Love never causes more sorrow. "Sorrow is a suffering of the mind, the hurt of knowing that something is wrong." (Ib., 97) Love is a cure for, not a cause of, emotional pain. The girl who refused my sexual advances refused to be victimized by my disrespect of her.

To respect is to protect.

Love always cares for the other, with no expectation of anything in return.

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Thursday, February 12, 2026

LOVE DOES NOT AFFIRM SIN


I'm re-posting this for some of my friends.
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The Cure for Entitlement and Victimization

 

 

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan


I recommend John Townsend's book The Entitlement Cure: Finding Success in Doing Hard Things the Right Way.

One of the bitter fruits of entitlement is externalization. Townsend writes: "People with an attitude of entitlement often project the responsibility of their choices on the outside, not the inside. The fault lies with other people, circumstances, or events. They blame others for every problem." (p. 61)

The worship songs of externalization are...

"It's Them, It's Them, It's Them, O Lord, Standin' in the Need of Prayer," and...

"Change Their Hearts, O God." 

Externalization-people fail to look at their part in their problems. "Instead, they default to answers outside their skin. The result? They tend to be powerless and unhappy. They tend to see life through the eyes of a victim. And their suffering is unproductive — it doesn’t get them anywhere." (Ib.)

The classic victim mentality is:

"Yes, I did what was wrong. But you forced me to do it." The "victim" persists in recruiting other people for the self-justification of evil. In this they destroy others, along with own soul.

Entitled people rarely say "thank you." Because they are deserving. Instead, they blame

"Blame," writes Townsend, "is a first cousin to entitlement." The constant blamer is the perpetual victim. 

The antidote to this bondage is to take responsibility for your own choices and attitudes. Be open to seeing yourself as the problem. Reject a global victimization that views yourself as someone who is always being "done to," and own your own part in your problems. 

Forgive those who have trespassed on your heart. 

Take responsibility for your own trespassing.
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Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Love Is Not Jealous


Flowers for Linda on Valentine's Day!

 Lewis Smedes's beautiful extended meditation on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Love Within Limits: Realizing Selfless Love In a Selfish World is, I think, the best book I have ever read on Jesus-like love.

Love, among other things, is not jealous.

The reason agape (the biblical Greek word for "love" used in 1 Cor. 13) is not jealous is because "it is the power to move us toward another person with no expectation of reward - not even the reward of exclusive loving. That is why agape is not jealous." (23)

Jealousy is not the same as envy. Envy is the wish that we had something that belongs to someone else. "Envy" does not have pain associated with it. "The people we envy are not a threat to us; they only happen to have what we would like to have." (24) But jealousy "is aimed at someone who threatens us, threatens to take away someone we love." (24)

It's not just persons we can be jealous of; we can also be jealous of things. I have met wives whose husbands spend more time fishing than they do with them. These wives are jealous of the sport of fishing. 

 Of course the shoe can be on the other foot. A husband can be jealous of his wife's friends, or her family, or her job, or even their children if she spends more time with them than with him.

Smedes writes: "Jealousy and envy are different feelings... We envy without pain. Jealousy is the pain we feel when our role, our position, is threatened by someone close to us. Envy can stimulate us to try harder. jealousy stimulates us only to resentment of the person who does better." (25)

Linda and I have been married for almost fifty-three years. I remember a time when we were dating and I was at her house. I was falling in love with her. We were with her family when someone knocked on the door. It was one of Linda's old boyfriends! She stepped outside and talked with him alone. Feelings of jealousy flooded over me. As I was sitting there I looked on the table next to me and there was a little booklet entitled "How to Win Over Jealousy." God has a sense of humor, right? I began to read it.

When her old boyfriend left I asked Linda, "What did he want?" 

 "I told him you and I were dating. He said 'OK,' but would you still like to go to a play with me?" 

 As I heard that I lit up! I couldn't believe he would ask her out, knowing she and I were in a relationship. Didn't I trust Linda? This event began to show me there was a lot of stuff inside me that needed healing.

Smedes says that "agape love transcends jealousy without destroying it." What does that mean? It means the more possessive and controlling a person is, the more a normal, protective jealousy will turn cancerous. Pray for release from controlling others.

Smedes writes: "If we have nothing else in the world to live for but our lover, we are vulnerable to the worst fits of jealousy. The person who tells someone else, "I can't live without you," is threatened at his deepest selfhood when the one with whom he cannot live has to be shared in the smallest way. Such a person always suspects the worst, and this very suspicion prods him to cruel reactions... Agape does not let us give our souls to idols, even to the idol of the ideal husband or wife or friend... So agape will not let us be so deeply threatened that our very existence seems at stake." (28-29)

Linda and I have always told others that, if and when you marry, marry someone that can live without you, and you without them. The only One we cannot live without is Christ. Agape love is, says Smedes, "the power to admit cheerfully that you cannot meet all the needs of your loved one or friend and are pleased that someone else can add what you lack." (29)

Jealousy is painful, but with God it can be transcended.  "But where there is Christian love, the power of agapic giving and sharing will prevent jealousy from building barbed-wire fences of self-protection against any sharing of love and loved ones." (29) Agape love is, among other things, the power of sharing.

Pray for a heart filled to overflowing with Jesus-like agape love.
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Monday, February 09, 2026

Love Requires a Predicate.

Trees in Love
Lake Erie sunrise, Sterling State Park

"S loves p." As in: John loves Linda." A 'subject' loves a 'predicate'; in this example, a subject loves a person.

Love is other-centered. "The lover desires the beloved."  At its best and purest a lover loves the beloved in such a way that the beloved experiences being-loved. Real love is for the sake of the other, not for one's own self. 

 Love serves the beloved. Where there is love, the beloved's well-being is paramount.

Love gives. "Love" is a relationship in which the predicate benefits at the expense of the subject. 

 The subject spends itself on the predicate. When it's the other way around, when the subject benefits at the expense of the predicate, the predicate loses their personhood and becomes an object. The predicate gets objectified. "S loves p" gets reduced to, simply, "S." The identity of the beloved is wallowed up in the narcissism of the lover. 

 This is the loopy logic of self-love, of "love" for the sake of one's self. The predicate is the subject. A strange self-reflexive reaction forms. This is "love" that is never satisfied. This is "love" that leads to adulterous affairs, serial monogamy, and other forms of non-investment.

Thomas Merton writes: "The one love that always grows weary of its object and is never satisfied with anything and is always looking for something different and new is the love of ourselves. It is the source of all boredom and all restlessness and all unqiet and all misery and all unhappiness - ultimately, it is hell." (The Waters of Siloe) Object-predicates fail to satisfy the greedy "subject" because the subject has become an all-absorbing thing,  eating love-objects like dogs devour chunks of meat.

"S loves p" could be construed not as a subject-predicate statement, but as a subject-object statement. What, precisely, in "S is in love with p," is predicated of S? Isn't p to be understood as the "object" of S's love and not a predicate ascribing something to the subject? No and yes. 

No: p is not best understood as an object of S's love. Subject-object language implies relational distance. Love has nothing to do with that. Love is a connected-relational thing. Love speaks of oneness and unity, not two-ness and distance. Two lovers "become one flesh." "One flesh" language resists the Cartesian ontological dichotomy between a knowing subject and an object which is to be known. Love is a unitive thing.

Yes: because if love were an ontological union between the lover and the beloved, both would disappear. Or, perhaps, the beloved would be absorbed into the lover. In this case "S loves _____" would become, simply, S. There is always a distance between lover and beloved, but not a Cartesian metaphysical distance whereby one wonders if the beloved exists. 

Subject-predicate language better explains the love-relationship than does subject-object language. In the statement "The chalk is white," "whiteness" is predicated as an attribute of "chalk," telling us something about a certain piece of chalk. Analogously, to say "S loves p" (or "S loves ____") tells us something about the being of S, instead of simply objectifying p.

The noetic framework that best accounts for the nature of real love as predicate-centered is Christian Trinitarian theism. The Christian idea of God as  "trinity" of Persons conceptually explains the idea that God is love. God, in his being, is love. 

 Because we have a God who is a three-personed being sharing one essence, the love of God is not self-love. In the idea of God-as-Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit love one another throughout eternity. God's love is "predicative" and relational, rather than objectifying in the sense of Descartes and the Cartesian tradition.

In John 14-17 Jesus extends an invitation to enter Trinitarian love. The love that ultimately satisfies, the love that provides the foundation of all earthly loves, the very source of love itself as other-centered, becomes ours, in reality and by experience. 

 Love requires a predicate, because the God who is love is, in his essence, a lover of others.

 God is the author of the subject-predicate love that defines his very being.
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Sunday, February 08, 2026

Love and Prayer

Ice dog in Monroe

Henri Nouwen writes:

 "Real freedom to live in this world comes from hearing clearly the truth about who we are, which is that we are the beloved. That’s what prayer is about. And that’s why it is so crucial and not just a nice thing to do once in a while. It is the essential attitude that creates in us the freedom to love other people not because they are going to love us back but because we are so loved and out of the abundance of that love we want to give." (Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living, pp. 15-16)

 We are the beloved, the loved ones of God. God loves us. It is no coincidence that these were the first words from God that I ever heard. 

 I was twenty-one. A campus pastor whose name was Marshall was talking to me and my roommate Biff. I wasn't listening, because I was thinking how I could argue against this pastor. I asked him a question. A hard question. "I can't answer that one," he said. The he added, "But I do believe there is a God, and that he loves you."

 That was it for me. I was undone. Ruined for life. God loves me. I knew it, viscerally, existentially, ontologically. In my heart. I have never been the same since. I am God's beloved.

 This is what prayer is about. This is why I pray. I pray to God because God loves me. I find this to be a rule: I love talking with people who love me.

The heart-knowing of God's never-failing love for me frees me to love other people, irregardless of whether they love in return. God's love for me frees me to pray and to love and live for others. God's love unhinges me from the prison walls of hypothetical, theoretical love.

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Saturday, February 07, 2026

Guidelines for Civil Discourse: #1 - Love Others

Flicker, in my back yard

(I don't read what people post on social media. I don't have time to do this. I am on Facebook, but I unfollow everyone except my family and our church staff. 

I'm not on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumbler, Snapchat, or Whatsapp. Or anything.  

I post this blog to Facebook. Some respond to my blog, and I often interact with them. Thank you.

I have always been a culture-watcher. I am interested in human behavior. I study moral behavior and its sources like a madman. I am interested in how we Jesus-followers should live and act and have our being. 

I have personal experience with humans abusing each other verbally. Even among Christians. Even, sadly, at times, me.

This post is about how someone who claims to follow Jesus should conduct themselves, in any medium, in all human interaction.)

***

 If you are a follower of Jesus, this is for us. 

 Though the world fails in civility, we must engage in civil discourse.

Our foundation for civil discourse is love. We are to love others, in our behaviors. With the love of God, exemplified in Jesus. We must love like Jesus loves.

 This includes those who disagree with us. It encompasses our enemies. They are among our "neighbors."

 Love is the sign, the mark, that we are what we declare we are; viz., Christians. If we don't love, we have nothing. (See 1 Corinthians 13) If we don't love, we don't have our identity, at least in the eyes of others.

 Jesus affirms the call to love in John 13:34-35:
“A new command I give you: 
Love one another. 
As I have loved you, 
so you must love one another. 
By this everyone will know 
that you are my disciples, 
if you love one another.”

People will know that you and I are with Jesus as we love one another. If we fail to do this, we will be considered to be far from Jesus. Or, people will think of Jesus through the lens of our rudeness and uncivility.

 When Christians hate one another on social media, they fail to display what is supposed to be their distinguishing mark; viz., love. When we get disgusted, show irritation, demean, mock, slander, ridicule, or bully, we dishonor people made in God's image. And bring shame upon our Lord.

 Francis Schaeffer, in his classic The Mark of the Christian, writes:

 "We are to love our fellowmen, to love all men, in fact, as neighbors. 
All men bear the image of God. They have value, not because they are redeemed, but because they are God’s creation in God’s image. Modern man, who has rejected this, has no clue as to who he is, and because of this he can find no real value for himself or for other men. Hence, he downgrades the value of other men and produces the horrible thing we face today—a sick culture in which men treat men as inhuman, as machines. As Christians, however, we know the value of men. 
All men are our neighbors, and we are to love them as ourselves. We are to do this on the basis of creation, even if they are not redeemed, for all men have value because they are made in the image of God. Therefore they are to be loved even at great cost." (Schaeffer, pp. 15-16)

 It is clear, is it not, that in all our discourse with people we are to love them. This is the higher ground, where Jesus was suspended on a cross.

The love principle applies even when in sharp disagreement with others. Remember that to love is not equivalent to affirmation, and that disagreement is not a justification for hatred.
***
My books are:

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)




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