3 Tiers to Protect Your Marriage: Part I

One of the major causes of divorce today is the extra marital affair. "Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." - Galatians 6:8.

Most people believe that men have affairs for sex. However, men often have affairs because they look to women to affirm their value and reason for existence. When this occurs, the men have failed long before an affair even took place. "Give not your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings." - Proverbs 31:3.

While this verse naturally instructs men to avoid using women outside of their marriage to fulfill them, it also instructs men to be careful about placing their wife as their foundation. The foundation for your marriage is critical for preserving it. "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." - Matthew 7:24-27.

So how should we prioritize our marriage to preserve it?  Keep reading at 3 Tiers to Protect Your Marriage: Part II

This post was reposted from http://finlit.biz/marriage/3-tiers-to-protect-your-marriage-part-i/, originally written on July 8th, 2013.

From Hannah

Btw, Proverbs 31:3 concerns how a king should behave, not an individual. Context matters. If you want to follow a stone age tribe that hates women among other minorities, and if you want to help people to help themselves, there are kinder ways. Selfishness is not the way. Best to you!

From Hannah

“Broken dreams” perfectly sums up my point about the focus here. You also made some good points. But religion does not necessarily equal good character, and divorce disproportionately harms women and benefits men (also, off-topic but potentially interesting and very much against popular stereotypes: men are much happier and healthier when married than single, and women much happier when single than married — I wonder why?).

I don’t mean to derail your posts — just providing an alternate view, and happy to take it offline. Sometimes hearing differing views can be useful. Good luck to you, and try to trust a little more in yourself rather than what others may wish you to believe.

From Scott Izu

Hannah, thanks for the response. If you are looking for straight financial advice, Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman have some great resources and books available. However, thoughts control beliefs and beliefs will determine your actions and actions will lead to your life’s results. That said, to truly succeed financially, it helps to model the thoughts of those who have had financial success. There are many who have succeeded before you financially and you have access to read a book that wraps up 80 years of their knowledge, experience and wisdom. You can stand on the shoulder’s of giants, so to speak. What I have found is that those individuals who have succeeded financially have supreme character and have the capability to live their lives based on certain fundamental principles.

Just some statistics on divorce. Divorce rates are 41% of first time marriages end in divorce and the number one cause is finances, according to http://www.divorce.com. Financially speaking, divorces lead to damaged credit scores, bankruptcies and broken dreams.

From Hannah

It struck me forcefully that this website has become a thinly veiled attempt to make sense of your own life and deep marital and other problems. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but the veneer of providing financial advice is slipping away with the focus on your religion, divorce, infidelity, and other difficulties. Rather than relying on a contradictory, misogynistic (stone female adulterers!), and small-minded doctrine, you might instead consider consulting a professional therapist. Good luck and best wishes!

3 Tiers to Protect Your Marriage: Part II

This article is continued from 3 Tiers to Protect Your Marriage: Part I.

In reality, families often put the children first, then the marriage next.  Then if there is any room left over, they address their spiritual needs.

However, one must ask, if the marriage fails, what will happen to the children?  Also, don't the children get taken better care of when both the husband and wife are filled with love and are working together.  On an airplane, during a crash or crisis, one must first secure the oxygen for able bodied individuals first, because when those individuals are well taken care of, they can then help others.  So remember men and women, place your husband's needs and your wife's needs before your children.  Focus first on loving, encouraging and building up your spouse and they will likely become a huge asset in your children's lives.

Likewise, if you put place your foundation into another person, what happens when they make a mistake, break down or fall off course?  Doesn't your spouse deserve to have the best of you?  Doesn't your spouse deserve to have your unconditional love even when they are not strong enough to love you back?  The only way this can occur is if you leave your spirituality as your foundation and take the time to make sure you are replenished directly from the source.

Instead of thinking about two people and love, think about two cars and electricity.  Usually, the two cars will run just fine, with their batteries being recharged internally and on a daily basis.  However, from time to time, one car's battery may die.  At this point, the other car can be used to give a jump start, and recharge the other car's dead battery.  Over a long period of time, both cars will eventually end up with dead batteries, unless they are replaced by an external source.

What is the end recommendation?  First, make sure your individual spiritual needs are met, by replenishing daily through worship.  Second, make sure your spouse's needs are met through love and encouragement.  Finally, attend to the children, pouring love into their lives.

This post was reposted from http://finlit.biz/marriage/3-tiers-to-protect-your-marriage-part-ii/, originally written on July 8th, 2013.

From Hannah

Of course one needs to take care of oneself, but this is completely backward. Children *do* come first. Yes, before your partner, and before yourself. To argue otherwise is so selfish and self-serving as to take my breath away. Your children will be well aware of who you’re putting first if it’s not them, as many of us know very well indeed, and the price is unimaginable.

Showing Love

I have always believed that if you want advice, take it from someone who has been successful in that area.  However, sometimes it may be difficult to know when someone has been successful.  Looks can be deceiving.  I'd like to try to point you in a good direction and you can determine for yourself.

When growing up, my mother always gave us compliments regarding our strengths, made individual time for each child and gave us tons of gifts. This is how she showed her love. I always thought my father wasn't as good as showing love, but the truth is, he was always working, improving something or making a better life for the family. On the other hand, I tend to freely build others up, spend time with others often listening to what they have to say and give plenty of physical hugs.

Gary Chapman, in his book, "The 5 Love Languages", talks about the five ways in which people show love: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. In order to find one's love languages, you can simply watch how they treat other people. If you see them complimenting others a lot, most likely they themselves need consistent affirmations. If someone throws a big party for another person, doesn't it make sense that they thought through how it would feel if a big party was thrown for them?  Figuring out how someone shows love can be difficult sometimes because some people who are emotionally mature tend to show love in ways based on the other person's love language.

The golden rule states that you should treat others how you want to be treated. However, one key to mastering your relationships is learning how to treat others how they want to be treated. As usual, your feedback and commments are welcomed!

This post was reposted from http://finlit.biz/business/divorce-the-financial-nightmare/, originally written on February 24th, 2013.

Captivate, Compete and Complete, 3 Stages of a Relationship

Let's face it.  Relationships underly everything.  If your relationships fail, your personal finances will fail.  If your relationships fail, your business or career will fail.  So what do you need to know?

Stage 1: Captivation

When you first find someone you are attracted to, you generally think, "Wow, I love this about them or I wish I had that quality or I am amazed at how they do this".  Opposites attract and you are attracted to a person or organization because they do something that you either can't do or you can't do alone.

Stage 2: Competition

After a while, you start to realize that the person is not perfect.  In fact, you start to find faults and think, "Why can't they do this? or I can't believe they survive life without doing this or why don't they see that this is important?"  At this point, you probably start to try to change them, often finding yourself competing with them.  Conflict can arise and you may even break up or leave the organization because their flaws are just too much to bear.  Trying to change something you have no control over can be extremely frustrating.

Stage 3: Completion

If you continue through the frustration, you will probably eventually realize that other people do not view life or work the same way you do.  You will probably realize that this does not identify their problem but rather, identifies your gift.  At this point, you realize that you provide a great deal of value and your purpose in the relationship or organization is not to compete, but rather complete (the extra l stands for love).

By focusing on completion, you will make the relationship or organization better.  You will also realize that the other person or people are valuable and actively show appreciation for them and their talents.  By focusing on yourself and changing your personal perception, eventually you may even inspire others to your way of thinking.

This post was reposted from http://finlit.biz/business/compete-versus-complete-3-stages-of-a-relationship/, originally written on April 15th, 2013.

Daniel and the Lion's Den, a Choice Between Reputation and Character

Once in a while you may have to choose between reputation and character.  Just remember, reputation represents what others think of you, character represents what God thinks of you.  In Daniel 6, the bible tells the story of Daniel, who chose to admit his true faith in God.  As punishment for his faith, he is placed into a den of lions.  Suprisingly, Daniel is not devoured by the hungry lions as all other men were.

Here, we offer a possible interpretation, the beauty of a parable.

In life, from time to time you may have to make a choice.  One road will salvage your reputation, the other will salvage your character.  The greater calling on your life asks for you to salvage your character.

If you do so, you may feel that you are being punished as your reputation slowly becomes tarnished.  In fact, many men never recover from the lashing of the gossip that ensues.  In fact, the gossip, like the lions' mouths can tear a man to shreds.

However, when you place your solid roots into the word of God, you will find that such gossip has little effect on you.  In fact, your strength, which stems from God will serve as an example to those around you and through time your reputation will be restored.

What do you think?  Did you have another interpretation?

This post was reposted from http://finlit.biz/business/daniel-and-the-lions-den-a-choice-between-reputation-and-character/, originally written on March 25th, 2013.

Pain, Your Driving Force

Today, I want to talk about pain and how to use it to your advantage.

You see Michael Jordan didn't become the greatest basketball player that ever lived because he had natural talent. Jordan became the greatest basketball player because he didn't make his high school basketball team.

Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson didn't become the greatest boxer that ever lived because he had natural talent. He became the greatest boxer that ever lived because when he was a kid, he got beat up so bad, that one day he decided he didn't ever want to get beat up again. That pain that he felt, led him to tap into such a great power that he broke the Olympic record with a six second knock out.

You see a horse can not achieve its greatest power, its fastest speed, its greatest potential until it is first broken. The pain that you incur in your life, that can become your fuel, your driving force, your path to greatness.

The other night, I was cooking fried chicken and I burnt my hand with some oil. As I washed my hand, I noticed how sensitive my hand was. In fact, it is still sensitive to the touch. As I walked out onto my porch, I realized that the pain, the hurt, had opened my body to feeling. Feelings that I would normally ignore. When you are struggling in life, when you feel that pain, you will be surprised the feelings that you feel, the feelings that your body becomes open to receiving, the feelings that you would normally ignore. You see, sometimes the keys to success are screaming so loud in front of you that it is unbelievable. But sometimes, it takes some pain, to open your mind and heart to seeing and feeling the truth that lies before you.

HIJACKING

One day, while driving in the car, my middle daughter faced my youngest daugther and said, "Gopher", making a funny face. My youngest daughter immediately changed from being happy, to becoming very upset, yelling, "I'm not a gopher!" What had happened here was that my middle daughter had, over time, associated this phrase and these actions with a series of teasing and taunting actions. Any other child, might have seen the same thing and started laughing.

At first, my youngest daughter might have taken a few minutes to respond, realizing the intention. However, after a while, the response became more and more sudden until no thought process was needed to evoke the response. In fact, one might argue that she had no control over the response at that moment, because she had already hard coded the response as a protection and defense mechanism. When someone does something that invokes a reaction beyond your control it is called hijacking. Your response occurs so fast that you do not even have time to think about the response.

It can be funny to watch people be hijacked. However, this occurs all to often in marriages. You might find a spouse becoming extremely upset when the other moves a spoon. Over a long period of time, moving that spoon has become attached to a conundrum of feelings and events. If you ever, feel like you have been hijacked, you must find the deep roots and unroot them, by questioning all the beliefs that caused the hard wiring to occur in the first place.

SELF HIJACKING PHRASE (AKA LIMITING BELIEF)

I often hear people say things like, "I hate math." When I hear this, I know it is a well rehearsed phrase, one stated over and over to the point that they believe it. Let's just call this a self hijacking phrase. If you ever hear a voice in your head, telling you something that you have told yourself before, beware. This may just be the self hijacking phrase, that is preventing you from growing in a particular area. While some will tell themselves over and over, "I can't because such and such happened to me," others will tell themselves over and over, "I must because such and such happened to me."

Dedicated to Thanh Ngo.



This post was reposted from http://sizuservices.blogspot.com/2012/10/pain-your-driving-force.html, originally written on October 24th, 2012.

Why Men Need Visions and Dreams

From Dr. Myles Munroe