Sure, a spouse can have his or her own thing. Lucy relaxes by gardening while I unwind with DC Comics. But there should be joint projects to deepen the bond. It’s a matter of balance.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t share your spouse’s interest and beg off. Lucy loves movies with wizards and dragons; me, I would rather see Bruce Willis kick behinds. But we don’t resent each other’s choice of genre.
 
An important task together is prayer. On mornings where I drive Lucy and myself to our respective offices, we would pray together inside the car. We beseech God’s father for our families, friends, and projects. At home, when an in-law would text us a prayer request about her business, a friend is scheduled for a court hearing, a beloved pastor had to undergo surgery, we paused to pray.
 
Lucy may be more of the supportive type, but her help is indispensable when I would preach at our home church, conduct a workshop, or organize a book launch. I bet that when God will distribute His rewards, Lucy will receive a larger haul of crowns than I. I won’t get jealous, because then we will have the unspeakable delight of laying our crowns before Him and falling down before Him in worship. 

Now that's a marriage made in heaven!

There was a time when Lucy and I take our Sunday breakfast with the menu being sunny-side up, daing na bangus… and newspapers. Yes, we used to eat in silence as we poured through opinion columns.

Later, I realized how our meal became a dead spot, so we both agreed to set the newspapers aside and chat as we ate. We would talk about how a dear friend is doing, an insight from our quiet times, plans for the upcoming week, and so on.

​Once, Lucy asked me “I wonder what’s on the news today?” I quipped, “You’re not missing anything. Duterte is still president.” We had a good laugh from this.
 
Don’t forget to adorn your talk with endearment. For example, do you use pet names? Maybe it’s Babe, Boo, Pooh Bear, or Snoogie Woogens. Me, I’m happy with calling Lucy “love” and she calls me “hon.” I would end my texts to her with “lov u” and she with emoticons. The moment a spouse calls the other hoy!, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know something is wrong.
 
When a couple has kids, I don’t recommend the husband calling the wife “Mama” and the wife calling the husband “Daddy.” It may be a Filipino thing, but I still remember the wry expression on my mentor’s face when he told me, “How can you make love to a Mama?”

'Nuff said!
 
This is excerpted from my article The Wall written for FamilyWise Asia. See the original here http://www.familywiseasia.com/the-wall/

Yakapsul. Kispirin. These are my and Lucy’s favorite maintenance pills. If you see us strolling around a mall, chances are you will see my arm draped on her shoulder. I am delighted if we were told “Awwww. How sweet.” Bur I would be puzzled if someone says, “Ang sweet pa kayo” (notice the pa), as if the longer one is married, the less affection is shown.
 
I know, I know, touch may not be your love language. But do you know there is this thing called skin hunger? It’s the need for physical human contact. Consider this all-too-real scenario. Lonely mother misses her husband’s caresses. So she satisfies her skin hunger by cradling her baby or hugging her kids. Result: she attaches herself more to the kids, but becomes more aloof from the husband.
 
When you and your spouse were still courting, I bet you were conscious about where you put your hands, lest you get carried away by fleshly temptations. But now you are married, you’re free to cuddle, snuggle, and smooch. As one American missionary once told me. “I’ve been in the field away from my wife for so long, I can’t wait to be home and squeeze her eyes out.” A boa constrictor came to my mind, but you get his point.
 
This is excerpted from my article The Wall written for FamilyWise Asia. See the original here http://www.familywiseasia.com/the-wall/

​Photo by Sandrachile . on Unsplash

A relationship is like a car engine. It needs lubrication. I had a friend who used to be a prosperous businessman. His car was a fancy Volvo. Then he fell into hard times. He still drove the Volvo to get around, but, being financially tight, he skimped on regular tune-ups. The time came that the engine oil got so dirty that it damaged the pistons. His car, now useless, sits rusting in his garage.
​
Grace is the lubricant of relationships. Great grace makes for great relationships. It works like this: You hurt me, but I choose not to hurt you back. Rather, I choose to give you a blessing you do not deserve.

This doesn’t mean that we condone the wrong or evade the issue. It doesn’t excuse domestic violence which is not necessarily physical. But one can still exercise grace which seeks the redemption of the offender.

Yet the chronic dilemma persists. “How can I ever forgive her? What she did was so hurtful!” The answer is first to realize the enormous grace which God has given us. Then extending grace to the wrongdoer should be the by-product.

So exercise grace to each other. Grace without keeping count. Grace because we received amazing grace from God. Grace that would keep us in the pathway of God’s favor.
​
The popular song “love will keep us together” needs some tweaking. Many couples start with romantic love. But how can we explain weddings that sparkle with bliss, only for the marriage to mutate into bitter court cases of annulment and child custody? The better adage would be “Grace will keep us together.”  Truckloads of it!

​You may have heard of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph was his dad’s favorite boy but was despised by his brothers, who sold Joseph as a slave in Egypt.

While in Egypt, Joseph was doing very well for his boss, Potiphar. But Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him and Joseph resisted her sexual advances. Incensed, the wife accused Joseph of attempted rape and Potiphar threw him in jail. But rather than becoming bitter, he still used his God-given talents to serve others, even in such an undesirable place like a dungeon.

Later, Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, had two dreams, which Joseph interpreted as a warning sign that a severe famine would befall the land. Joseph recommended that the Egyptians should hoard a massive amount of food to sustain them during this terrible period. Pharaoh liked Joseph’s interpretation and advice so much that he immediately appointed Joseph as his second-in-command to oversee the food storage project.

I do not know what is your situation at work.

Are you a factory worker toiling in heat and obscurity?

Or a schoolteacher wondering whether you are making an impact on your students?

Or a salesman struggling to clinch that next deal?

Or a call-center agent enduring the grind of the graveyard shift?

I doubt Joseph saw his being a slave and prisoner as “Boy, this is great career training.” Yet he was faithful to the smaller yet significant responsibilities – even if it was in a place of pain!

Whatever your status, take heart. Give your best today. Excellence builds upon itself and soon, it won’t go unnoticed. Rather than whine about not being given the big breaks, cultivate a grateful heart that you have an arena where you can showcase your unique personality and abilities.

Joseph used his God-given gifts “in the hidden places, among forgotten people.” But it became his prelude to greatness.

So can we.

Photo by Xtra, Inc. on Unsplash

Want to discover an insight about happiness that will only cost you forty pesos?

Don’t worry. Half of that amount will go back to yourself. No, I won’t be getting the other half.
Here’s the thing: Spend twenty pesos to buy your favorite ice cream and eat it. Feels heavenly, right? Especially if it’s chocolate. (Sounds familiar?)

Now get another twenty pesos. Only this time, use it for an act of kindness to a total stranger. For example, when you see a street kid selling sampaguita flowers, buy all his stock. And let him keep the flowers so he can sell them to someone else.

Guess which one will put a wider smile on your face?

That’s right. The insight is that happiness is a by-product. Chase happiness itself and it will elude you. Do something meaningful for others and happiness will embrace you.

This is the paradox of happiness. Don’t expect your career, your possessions, or your relationships to make you happy. Rather, give value to others and happiness will follow. Focus on excellence and satisfaction will well up within you. Go an extra mile for others and their delight will be yours as well. Learn skills beyond your current level and you will unleash the thrill of exploration.

Today, survey your situation with a fresh pair of eyes. There is a gold mine of joy waiting for you. You just need to know where to dig and emotional treasures will soon yield themselves to you.

Have a great weekend ahead!
​
Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

Hungry years can actually save us from accumulating stuff, which, in turn, demand much time, expense and effort to maintain. More importantly, we can stop focusing on things and start cherishing relationships.

Hungry years also remind us of God’s faithful provision. One day, I chanced upon a Czech proverb that stuck in my mind: “The God who gives us teeth will also give us bread.”

God may cause us to hunger, but He will not allow us to die of hunger. Indeed, He had brought the Israelites to utterly depend on Him for their very survival.

God is not a sadist who dangles a bone before a chained dog, never letting the dog to get the bone. Rather, God responded to their hunger by giving them manna, day after unfailing day for forty years.

Hungry years are just as valuable as the satisfied years. In due time, God put an end to the Israelite’s wandering and brought them to the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey.

If God wills, someday He will usher us into the “Promised Land” He has in store for us. There, we will no longer wrestle with tight budgets and gnawing need.
​
But until then, there are treasures to be gathered, lessons to be learned. Trusting in God’s matchless goodness, we embrace the hungry years as the necessary shadow for what promises to be magnificent portrait.

#hopeforthewearysoul

Photo by Kat Yukawa on Unsplash

Most of us go through times of tightness and inflexibility. We feel trapped and constrained, then frustrated, depressed or angry. I call this period the hungry years. It may be in our finances, career, love life, or physical health.

I had my own hungry years.

I was accusing God of being stingy, like a billionaire who hands me a bowl of bland porridge when he could have treated me to a sumptuous buffet. But one day I came across a line that changed my thinking. “[God] humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

Wait a minute. God causing you to hunger?

​I thought that when God blesses us, we are filled, happy or even carefree. But the more I thought about this sentence – given to the people of Israel after wandering through the desert for forty years – the more I realized that God’s blessings do not always mean that He makes us comfortable.

Put differently, suffering does not necessarily mean that one has lost God’s favor. In fact, there are blessings that God can only give us through hunger. Hunger can be an instrument in the hands of a God who knows perfectly what He is doing. We have to accept that God uses both the pleasant and the unpleasant, the famine as well as the feast, in a divinely ordained blend.

In what way can going through “hungry years” – times when our finances are tight and we wonder if we will ever prosper – serve to our benefit? We will explore this in my next blog post.

Photo by Lakerain Snake on Unsplash