Achuckallen

Instigating Better

Marriage

A Simple Conversation that Matters

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AChuckAllen

I realize that I’m a bit odd. I mean, I know that I’m weird. First, I’m a pastor that works hard at attempting to be normal. Second, I am allergic to chit-chat. No, really! I would never say that I like chatting in the sense of getting together for no purpose other than a chat.

However, I greatly appreciate a conversation grounded in purpose. Purpose feels like an accomplishment, reasoning, debating, sharpening, or resolving.

That’s why I know that the following conversation is a double win for you and your friend, child, parent, or spouse. Maybe even all the above!

Build these three questions into your daily routine and watch how your relationships improve with each day that you engage your person (s) of choice.

1. Start with YOUR BEST: What’s the best thing that happened yesterday?

2. Then Tackle the Worst. What’s the worst that’s happened (or is happening) today?

3. Then Add Prayer. What can I specifically pray for you today?

Please be sure to keep it simple. Keep it very real. Keep it truthful. Once you commit to asking, be equally committed to answering. Here’s the essential element in this brief, personal, purposeful conversation – actually pray for them!

If you don’t have anyone to have this conversation with, let your prayer be that you’ll discover them this week. In the meantime, feel free to send me an email and answer these questions. I’ll reply with my answers and pray earnestly for you.

Go In Peace, Chuck

Need help? At Clear Path Counseling, we believe that reaching out for help is hard enough; finding it should be straightforward and simple. Just CLICK HERE and start your free assessment. You can finish your complimentary assessment in less than 10-minutes!

ClearPathCounseling.org

3 Proactive Steps to a Healthy Marriage

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AChuckAllen.com

In yesterday’s article, I offered 3 Pitfalls that you can willfully choose to avoid in your marriage.

In today’s article, I’d like to offer 3 Simple Steps that You Can Take to Create a Healthier Marriage.

  1. Proactively discover and deliver what your spouse appreciates and receives value from. In my wife’s case, this involves small things like, planning date nights. It includes the occassional bundle of fresh cut flowers brought home or left at home for her. It definitely involves full faced attention when she’s talking to me. How did I discover these things? Honestly, I asked, or I learned. Trust me on this one – asking is the way to go! When I talked about assumptions in yesterday’s article, this is one example of that. Go ahead and ask what they would like for you to do, become, or stop doing that would feel like a gift to them. It’s not bio-engineering. It’s a simple conversation over dinner. Once you have HEARD what your spouse describes as something they would feel like, when offered is a gift – deliver on it. Then learn the frequency with which you are to deliver. I’ll promise you that this is so easy to do and so powerful when done!
  2. Set a specific time that the two of you are going to talk about your day. This requires that we put our phones down, turn off the television, and actually talk about the highs, the lows, the good and the bad in your day. Here’s the best advice that I can give you on this effort – be completely present as you listen, not just when you are speaking! If you are a time-crunched couple, or you are “not very good at sitting still,” then have the conversation while you take a walk. The power of simply talking about your individual days is a powerful way to stay emotionally and romantically connected. By the way, this doesn’t have to be an hour long talk. Be sensitive to your sweetheart’s tolerence for chatting. Remember, this is helpful for you, but is designed to be powerfully helpful for y’all.
  3. Learn the power of praying together, out loud. I realize that I must sound like a broken record on this subject, but when Jenny and I pray together, it is such an intimate time between us. Triangulating the conversation between you, your spouse and God is supernatural. I am supremely confident that you cannot hold on to bitterness, pettiness, anger, or disappointment once you have sat in God’s lap and talked it out with Him. Again, be aware of your spouse’s tolerance level. Their spiritual maturity might be significantly lesser than yours on any given day. Be sensitive to that. I know plenty of Christians that weaponize their personal spiritual maturity against their partner. It ALWAYS BACKFIRES! Don’t fall prey to the urge to pray silently. I urge you to discover just how awesome it is to pray with your spouse – out loud and together!

I hope that you’ve been encouraged by this two-part series and will consider instigating these ideas into your marriage. I’d love to hear from you, so please give me a shout at chuck@achuckallen.com – and let me know what works in your marriage.

Peace, Chuck

If you are looking for a bit of weekly inspiration, please join in the conversation each Thursday, as Julie Homrich and I INTEGRATE FAITH & PSYCHOLOGY on the POSITIVE TALK PODCAST.

The Taxes We Pay

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The Taxes We Pay with ACHUCKAllen

It’s that time of year, again. Tax Time. Its that day when you look at your previous years income and realize that you have paid for a lot of Americanism. If you lived in the Ukraine, Syria, or Somali, you’d gladly pay those taxes to have the freedom and prosperity that we enjoy, here in the USofA. 

But there are other taxes we pay. 

  • There is a tax on leading anything: You will be criticized. 
  • There is a tax on being a parent: You will be broken-hearted. 
  • There is a tax on a happy marriage: You will learn to sacrificially compromise. 
  • There is a tax on Peace: You must remain strong. 
  • There is a tax on friendships: You learn to hurt when they hurt and celebrate when they celebrate. 
  • There is a tax on serving others: You will be taken advantage of. 
  • There is a tax on loving Jesus – Openly: You will be hated and belittled. 
  • There is a tax on sin: Be sure your sin will find you out. 
  • There is a tax on giving: Living with an open hand will cost you something. 

Whatever we do, that truly counts for something worthwhile, will cost us something. King David said, “I will not bring an offering to the Lord, which costs me nothing.” 

Let’s be found guilty of paying the tax on leading, loving and serving well. Let’s not grumble over that tax because King David is still right, in 2017. Live loud, live large, and live this life with an open hand. That will require a tax – a tax well spent. 

Peace — AChuck