Something was missing ...

What was missing?

It was the 3rd deliberate action you can take to show encouragement!

LOVE

Foster with Unconditional Love

Loving your spouse may begin as the easiest action in marriage and end up, because of life tensions, the most difficult to sustain. Imagine love as the warp and weft of a fabric - and then enveloping your spouse in that fabric woven following the pattern found in 1Corinthians 13:4-7.

This is the third of 7 deliberate actions to show encouragement.

Validate with Intimate Knowledge

Encouragement can come from knowing your spouse

- inside and out -

by being the person able to finish their sentences

and instinctively understand their motivations.

What if you could identify what your spouse needed - physically, mentally and emotionally? If you use intimate knowledge in a postive way, your ability to encourage will deepen - from a puddle to a bottomless well.

This is the 7th deliberate action to show positive encouragement.

Stimulate with New Insight

Idea sparks - iron sharpens iron. Engergizing new information.

New Insight will stimulate excitement for on-going acitivites, and illuminate new avenues. Share new ideas and use those ideas to keep your life together interesting and future focused. New Insight will create a brilliant firework display designed to vitalize your marriage encouragement.

This is the sixth, of 7 deliberate actions to show positive encouragement.

Support with Joy Filled Zeal

Action uncovers values. Action enhances values.

How can you uncover and develop your shared values to create a marriage blueprint including these values? Have you ever sat down with your spouse and done a value analysis?

There are couples who constructed an immense shared purpose by leveraging their values and built a marriage blueprint using joy-fill Zeal.

You can support your spouse with joy-filled zeal to encourage them.

This is the fifth of 7 deliberate actions to show positive encouragement.

Uplift with Persistent Prayer

Sharing problems, fears and concerns with God can encourage your spouse - they'll feel secure when prayer becomes the first line of defence.

Prayer will provide release - other couples use prayer as a way of encouraging each other. Prayer can raise your marriage encouragement to new heights.

Spouses can use persistent PRAYER to lift up each other - secure in the knowledge they pray for, and with each other, seeking God's will for their life together.

This is the fourth of 7 actions to show positive encouragement.

Fortify with Faith

Encouragement can come from dong everything possible to build a deep, abiding faith in God - then sharing in word and action this faith with your spouse.

Faith is personal - unique to each person. How can you use your unique faith to encourage your spouse - without "preaching"? Be encouraged yourself - faith can be used to enhance your marriage, and we'll explore how.

This is the 2nd of seven ways to show positive encouragement.

Inspire with Hope

Encouragement can come from the belief

there will be something good in the future.

Listlessness,

lack of positive future focus,

and a stagnant, disinterested outlook

have no place in an encouraging marriage.

Spouses can use HOPE to inspire each other

– hope for a bright, interesting future together.

This is the first of seven ways

it’s possible to show positive encouragement.

If Peace in marriage was described using music...

In music, harmony is the pleasing blending of notes to enhance the melody.

In marriage, peace provides a harmony to compliment purpose.

If spouses have purpose in their marriage, then peace becomes the satisfying note to give purpose added dimension. Using music to illustrate peace, harmony would be like consonance in intervals - notes that sound pleasing when played at the same time. The notes sound stable. Peace provides stability.

In addition, peace is not passive - it's an active state. Think of a line of harmony in a song (alto, tenor, or bass). Harmony doesn't remain on one note regardless of the melody; rather it follows the melody, creating a pleasing distinction. Just as peace can follow a couple through their life, complimenting new experiences.

How can you tell when peace is a part of marriage? It shows by how each spouse knows and accepts the underlying motivation of the other - regardless of outward actions. Peace provides stability. Each spouse is secure in their understanding of the other's decisions, because they are united in purpose. Peace provides the harmony to the melody of purpose.

Every marriage can have harmony. However, in music there is more than one style of harmony. Will your marriage harmony be like consonance, which can be compared to peace? The other concept in music harmony is called dissonance - where the interval between notes is uncomfortable. That interval isn’t considered stable according to a musical dictionary.

• consonance - notes put together to sound stable, and pleasing to the ear


• dissonance - notes that are uncomfortable together - the listener's ear is waiting for a change of note to make the sound comfortable

You’ll have to take a look at your marriage and decide what kind of interval and harmony you’d like to live. My desire is that both of you will feel & learn the interval of consonance, thereby the peace of harmony in your marriage.

Shared harmony equals shared peace.

A note on peace: The most precious peace is from God, through Christ Jesus. Only He can give true peace. Read John 14:25-27 to begin to understand that peace.

Join me next time, as I introduce the first of - 7 deliberate actions - using encouragement to bring peace and purpose into your marriage relationship.

If Purpose in marriage was like music...

If purpose in marriage were compared to music,

then purpose would be the melody.

Melody has a direction - a beginning, middle and end. It moves. It soars or plunges and, at some point, it ends. However, there is always more than one melody we love – more than one melody we want to repeat or learn. Melody is like purpose in a marriage. There are times when a purpose comes to an end, and it’s time to find and begin a new purpose.

Think of a piece of music currently on the radio or from your childhood. Chances are it's the melody you remember. It’ll be the melody you hum. A familiar melody can evoke emotion – the remembered joy of an experience, or the poignant memory of a time that can’t be repeated.

Purpose in your marriage is like the melody of a song. If you sing the same melody, it'll be a testimony to your life together. And as you continue your marriage journey, you’ll begin, travel through and end a number of activities that will unite you in purpose. Those purposes will highlight the unique offerings of two souls united.

• Sometimes melody is in a major key - that's the joy and inspiration of the happy times – the successes.


• Other times melody is in a minor key - that's the sorrow and trial everyone must work through.

In life, others will hear your marriage melody and take joy in it. Maybe, as they encounter similar life challenges, they'll try to learn your unique marriage melody and adapt it to their marriage.

In the end, all of our marriages – no matter what season they’re in - have a melody. My desire is that each spouse hums the same melody at the same time - a marriage melody on tune and in key!

Shared Melody equals shared Purpose!

My goal for this blog is to...

teach wives and husbands
that are committed to a future together
to use the power of encouragement
- there are 7 deliberate actions they can take-
to bring peace and purpose
into their marriage relationship.

If you want to know more go to http://www.encourageyourspouse.com/ , or come back to learn more about each of the seven deliberate actions and how you can use them in your marriage!

My Purpose at Encourage Your Spouse

My purpose

is that they may be

encouraged in heart

and united in love...

Colossians 2:2 NIV