One way[s] to Love your husband/wife better…

when you’re dating someone, you only see them at specific times and so generally you are able to always look good for them, for the most part you will be putting in extra effort and they will more than often see you at your best.

it is also generally a time where you are often carried along by the emotion and the ‘feelings’ and the fresh raw excitement of the idea that this person of the opposite gender seems to want to keep hanging out with you and keeps returning those goofy no-you-hang-up type of smiles you’re giving out…

then you get married and that person is around all the time and they get to see the good, the bad and the ugly of you in terms of looks and attitude and behaviour and suddenly there is work and effort and intentionality involved because marriage is hard work. well it is if you want to do it well. for most people anyways. for me and Val at least.

it is amazing! hear that for sure. don’t get lost in the ‘marriage is work’ and hear ‘marriage is no fun’ or anything like that – i will continue to shout from the rooftops [slash my bed] that “Marriage to the right person is the most incredible thing!” [for those wanting to be married at least – if you’re single and loving that, then that is also the best]

and because it is incredible it is worth putting a monumental amount of work and effort into…

because it is amazing it is worth inviting the wisdom and advice of others who have walked and are walking this journey well…

because it is a good thing it is worth sharing your successes with others…

so watch this space as i share a few and invite some good friends to add their thoughts as well…

Dalene Reyburn shares with us about doing the next right thing

Robert Martin shares a touching story encompassing the theme of self sacrifice

Sheralyn Cloete encourages us to assume, but well

Brett Fish shares about the importance of being present

Rich Erasmus shares a short but incredibly profound exercise he felt so helpful in really listening to and hearing his wife…

Brett Fish talks about Loving your person in a way that they can best receive it

[if you’ve been married for a bit and think you have a ‘one way’ to share worth sharing, please email it to me at brettfish@hotmail.com and i will definitely consider sharing it – name, how long you’ve been married and your piece of experienced wisdom]

How to Love your husband/wife better: The Parts

these are a series of posts i am sharing that i have taken from a series called ‘How to Love your Woman/Man better’ from a while back and also a series titled ‘One way to Love your spouse better’ that i ran more recently [with the input of some friends] – there are many incredible gems here that can help you as you look to contribute to a healthy and thriving marriage and i hope you will find them useful and if so, please feel free to share and pass on…

Arguing Well

The Defining of Love

Small Intentional Sacrifices

Verbal Blessing

Halting the Movement of the Sun

Amnesia

Choosing This Day

Saying It

When my “yes” sounds like a “NO!”

doing the next right thing [Dalene Reyburn]

my beautiful wife Valerie [tbV] wrote a couple of thoughts on how to love your man better and so i thought these would be good to include here as they have a distinctly different flavour:

How to love your man better – “Just love him…”

How to love your man better – “Respond to his character”

How to love your man better – “Be Nice”

who would win a fight between matt redman [never once did we walk alone] and john ellis [formerly of tree63]?

i’ve been blogging for a little over two years now and i enjoy having a space to write my thorts or share my actions or be seriously silly or intriguingly insightful and a whole host of other stuff in between…

and in that time it is the stuff i’ve written on relationships that has been the most widely read… so from ‘How to Love Your Woman Better’ to keys to ‘having a good marriage [ideas submitted by friends i know who are married well]’ to the ‘i kissed dating series’. Then, recently, the first of the Taboo Topics series i have started [trying to look at issues that a lot of people have but rarely discuss] was really successful and hopefully assisting a lot of people who have struggled with losing a baby. A few brave people sharing their stories in the hope that it will bring encouragement, inspiration and hope to others going through the same thing.

so those are the blog topics that have really got a lot of attention… but there have been two other topics/themes/people that have popped up in my “TOP SEARCHES” spot on my blog, and, would you know it, as i go to find out what it is called, it proves my point… so before i announce the point, let me share with you today’s top searches which led people to my blog:

brett fish anderson, john ellis christian, brent fishes blog, never once did we walk alone, john ellis tree63

ha ha, when i go to check yesterday’s to see if they match up, someone reached my page by asking the question, “why did matt redman leave soul survivor?” i fear that will be a question that is never truly answered to my satisfaction…

and so that is the answer – from week to week to week, the two things that keep popping up in searches for my blog are ‘John Ellis’ who i blogged about possibly two years ago [and more specifically, ‘is John Ellis a christian?’], here and also here… and matt redman and more specifically the words to his song ‘never once did we walk alone’ which i posted a while back over here…

i am not really sure why those two topics have been the ones that continue to lure people to my writing [which feels like it happened so long ago – why is no-one searching for ‘somewhat funny bad afrikaans accent instructional warning-of-potential-danger you tube videos’ because surely that is something people are struggling to sleep at night for?] but i thort it would be interesting to pose the question in the subject line, because i already know the answer.

i have met both matt redman [interviewed him on CCFM radio many years ago, connected with him briefly at Soul Survivor Holland and was an attendee at a Matt Redman/Chris Tomlin/Louis Giglio panel discussion held for a bunch of worship and church leaders a couple of years ago at Jubilee church in Cape Town] and john ellis [mc’d for the band when they were still called Tree and i was a dj at CCFM, emailed a few times and had coffee with him in KZN two years ago, hung out with him when he gigged in Stellenbosch and mc’d a gig where he performed as himself at Arisefest in KZN in 2010].

and so when you take the question, ‘who would win a fight between matt redman [never once did we walk alone] and john ellis [formerly of tree63]?’ the answer is definitively that john would win. no doubt. because matt redman would not fight!

the first time i met matt i was a precocious know-it-all radio dj for a christian radio station and yet, as much as i asked him if he was a vegetable which one would he be? and other lame questions like that, all he wanted to do was talk about Jesus.

the second time i was around him he was one of two co-worship leaders at the Holland version of Soul Survivor [2001 i think] and i remember the one time the other worship leader antonie fountaine was leading a few thousand young people in worship and matt moved over to the side of the stage and sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage, playing his guitar and just really being out of the way of it all. just screamed ‘humility’ at me and any time i have been near or around me i have never seen anything to suggest otherwise.

and then there is john ellis, who has a song called “come out fighting” which i enjoy, as i do most of his first solo album. and having spent a bit of time with him and watched him do one or two gigs is quite a fitting description of the kind of head space he is in at the moment [or was, a year ago]. i really enjoyed my one on one coffee date i had with john two years ago – we have a similar sense of humour and have been inspired by some of the same books. he has an incredible gift in terms of writing and playing and singing, there is no doubt about that, and when he uses that for Jesus he is a force for the kingdom of heaven, that the gates of hell will not stand against…

but then we had an unfortunate incident at the gig i was mc’ing that he played at, and it’s not important to go into details, but the bottom line was that we went from being friends and him buying me a coffee before he went on stage and then cutting all contact off with me a few days later when he reacted to my blogged response of the incident. more than a year later and i have tried on a number of occasions to make contact and see if we can discuss what happened or move on, and i even emailed him during the writing of this blog [which is now into its third day] to let him know i was writing something and offering to send it to him before i posted it in case he wanted to approve/comment and am still to hear from him…

i don’t know if this is the right space or way but i have tried a lot of ways to connect with him and at the moment anyone who does a search for john ellis and ends up on my blog, gets the early stuff i wrote which was about giving him a chance and the benefit of the doubt and having a conversation with him… i figure there are a few people who read this who know john and so maybe you can pass on the message… some stuff happened, a long time ago now, and it’s beyond time to make up and talk it out if necessary or just move on… how about it john?

someone once said [and it has been repeated by a lot of someones since then] “Preach the gospel always. When necessary use words.” and for me, that statement has always felt more like an excuse from those who don’t want to say the name ‘Jesus’ than an encouragement to live out what you believe. because the reality is that it has to be both… if you only ever speak the good news and it is not lived out, then it will have no meaning, relevance or authenticity to those hearing it… and if you only ever live the gospel but never speak the name Jesus as the author and reason behind why we do what we do, then there is going to be a lot of good done, but no or little opportunity for life-transforming life change.

so the phrase i am working on looks something like this – “Preach the gospel in what you say and how you live. When necessary, refrain from words.”

Up to your cross I crawl
Now I am standing ten feet tall
Jesus my savior look what you’ve done for me

Free at last I’m free
I owe you my life completely
Yahweh Yahweh look what you’ve done for me

Loving your woman [or man] better and/or the art of marriage

so i know my latest blog series on Taboo Topics has been difficult for a number of people to read, both those having gone through it and also those who are on the way to having their first child… i do think they are extremely valuable for those people the are meant for though and so will continue to post them but in the meantime for everyone else [and also those people] i thort it might be helpful to post links to two of my most successful and popular blog series from the past:

the first one was titled ‘how to love your woman better’ but it was really about how to be in a good relationship and so it works for women as well to read cos generally the principles work both ways – it is a series of posts with each one having a link to the following one and so you can read as many or as few as you please [and as always, if you think any of them will be helpful to anyone you know, feel free to pass on]:

https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/how-to-love-your-woman-better-part-arguing-well-part-i-of-iii

followed by the ones written specifically to the women:

https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/how-to-love-your-man-better-by-not-me

and secondly i presented an 18 part series where i got a bunch of friends i know who i think are married well to share a secret or key to having a good marriage and so there are a variety of comments here which are valuable to those married and to anyone one day hoping to be:

https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/how-to-save-a-marriage-before-you-need-to-part-i

hope those inspire and refresh and bring joy…