Tools For Facing Reality

We can create and environment as a couple within which it is easier to face reality. 

A. Assurance of Unconditional Love

Home needs to be a place where you can be yourself--a safe place to go when you fail or are discouraged, as well as when things are going well. 

We all need someone to love us just as we are, warts and all.

A favorite definition of unconditional love for me is that it is a love based in the character of the one loving, not in the lovableness of the one loved.  Love is a choice of the will, more than an emotion of the heart.

Our model for this kind of love is God himself.  This is how the Bible describes his love.

I John 4:7-11
7          Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8          Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9          This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10        This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11        Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  (NIV)
 

B. Actively Listen to Each Other

Politeness, tact, and kindness are all part of creating this atmosphere. 

God gave us some very insightful instructions in this area.  A passage in the Bible says that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to exhibit anger. 

You notice He gave us two ears and one mouth.

If your spouse knows that they will get a listening ear when they share their reality, you will have a greater chance of hearing the truth. 

C. Aligning my reality with God’s truth. 

If God is all knowing he knows the reality of your life.  The more you look at something the way God looks at it, the closer you will be to reality. 

The more you have God’s perspective the more real truth you have. 

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