Couples: Wife Submission is questioned?

“23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”
Ephesians 5:23-25 (TNIV)

Have you had a problem with that verse before? Hmm be honest. Isn’t hard to submit some times to God nerveless to another human being?
I am sure so many of you out there are woman who strong in mind and personality and won’t like to hear that word to submit.

So, lets think about how we should submit to God first. When God promises his protection and love to us, he makes a covenant with us to deliver his promises.
Now question yourselves, how you get to enjoy his love and protection. The answer is within submiting. As we choose to go under the Lord authority, we choose to enjoy his blessing and the deliverance of his promises to us.

Remember God always give us the power to choose him or others. But as we submit/choose him, we trust him to do the right thing and expect that even though his decisions maybe different from ours, that he wants and does what is best for us.
The amazing thing about that is that when we submit to God, we do it with all love and willing heart. As a result even when he decides differently for us, we take it with an open heart and less doubtfully.

Now, let’s turn back to our partners and our husbands to be exact. I am not going to tell you that God commended you to submit to him. But I am asking you? Do you trust your husband? Do you believe that he will do what ever is in his power to protect you and provide for you? Does he tries to learn to be more like Jesus and set a good example for your and for your family?

Before you answer all the questions, let me ask you another question. Do you expect that your husband some times makes the wrong decision?

Let me explain, sometime we hold our husbands to such high standard like Jesus and expect them to be like that since you as a wives submit to them, which is totally wrong.
But our trust in them should not fail, nor our love. Your respect to him should not shake. Instead we should embrace them with patience and mercy as they try harder next time.

Here is my two sense, wives need to love their husband and trust them and understand that they entered with their husbands under a covenant which allow you to enjoy his love and protection as you embrace submission to him. You need to express your trust in him by submitting to him with love just as we do with God.

Stuart Greaves said, “submission is just letting your husband love you.”. As we enter and accept God authority over us, we allowing God to love us and embraces us with his blessing.

If you change your attitude toward this verse and think of it that way, your perspective of marriage will be totally different. I want you to think about how powerful you are, making that choice of allowing your husband to love you as you submit to him.

Remember that the covenant you entered with your husband isn’t conditional contract. His love is extended no matter you choose to submit to him or not. But think of the advantage that you and your family will enjoy as you allow him to love you.

Husbands and Wives, remember that you both are there to wash each other feet.

I really encourge you to read Humble Submission by Paul J. Bucknell

I would also like to hear your comments.

Couples: Polite Relationships is questioned??

How many of us tries to be so polite in a relationship? We try not to express too much of our anger and too much of our so not cool emotions to our partners.

Reading these words from a blog I came across made me wonder:

"And while I was angry with my partner, disappointed and appalled that the curtain of good fortune was being torn down in front of my eyes…our relationship grew. I found that I needed to complain to him, cry to him, shake my fist at him.

I realized for the first time that I had an actual relationship with God. I realized that my frustration and tears meant that I really did believe He was there. That He was not a distant clockmaker or the leader of an exclusive club. I realized he was my Father, the only one I could turn to. Simplistic as that may sound, it was a revelation for me."

Here is my two sense. It's easy to have faith when things are going well. Or at least holding status qua. But when we face the dark side of life, when we have to turn and stand nose to nose with the unpleasant, frightening, heart-breaking face of suffering and death, things lose their clarity and our believe in love shakes.

See, many of us learn not to question God and not even doubt him, but I know it is my right to question God, so when it comes to relationships, we sometimes don't dare to enter into conflict with our partner, We be afraid to spoil our love.

Today, I want you to change your way of thinking and think how a conflict can be the tool to draw us closer and closer as couples.

Conflict is the tool to vent out our emotions and disappointment. It is the emotions that we express our frustration.

Here is the key how you use conflict to your benefit.

Listen carefully to your partner during conflict, Listen and find how he or she feels. Then, take that to heart and start responding in a very kind, gentle ways.

I want you all not to avoid conflict, but to see it as an opportunity to find out what makes your partner upset and sad, and as a result take notes and start a new journey of expressing love.

I encourage you to stop with these polite relationships and have an constructive conversions about what really need to be worked on.

Don't forget: Get Angry but don't sin.

Couples: Ten business strategies to organize your family

Reading the Cnn/Living section today, I came across a great article that I had to share with every one. I really like number 1,3,8 and 10. It is really important to learn from other and look on others mistakes as reason to learn.
Patrick Lencioni writes:
About 11 years ago, two big things happened in my life: My wife and I started a family, and I launched a consulting firm. For years I was much more successful at running my company than managing our family -- probably because I was taking specific steps to improve my business, then going home and winging it.
Well, a few years ago, it occurred to me that this made no sense, and that my family was in fact an organization, too -- the most important one in my life.
That realization was probably provoked by an innocuous (or so I thought) comment to my wife: "You know, honey, if my clients ran their companies the way we run this family, they'd go out of business."
I'll spare you the gory details of her response and just tell you that we eventually decided to figure out whether the tools and concepts I applied with my clients might help our home run more smoothly. I'm here to report that they absolutely did and might help you, too. (Don't worry: None involve persuading a 10-year-old to endure the agony of a performance review.) Real Simple: How to make good decisions
1. Identify your core values. Companies define their core values because they provide a great framework for making all kinds of decisions. To apply this idea to your family, think about what common traits each spouse admires in the other. One of the things I love about my wife is that she is unafraid to speak her mind or stand up for her beliefs.
We wanted to pass that trait on to our four sons, so we made it a core value. (Our others are creativity and passion.) Then, when one of the boys was sent to the principal's office for defending a classmate who was being bullied, we made it clear that he should be proud that he had stood up for a friend.

2. Establish a single top priority. If everything is important, nothing is. Too many companies fail because they spread their time and energies too thin. Answer this question: "In addition to our day-to-day responsibilities, if we accomplish one big thing as a family in the next few months, what should it be?" And then work on it. It could be anything from "Help Dad get healthy" to "Spend more time together as a family at home." Real Simple: 14 shortcuts for everyday tasks

3. Keep your values and top priority visible. You don't need an engraved plaque to remind you of what's important. But it's good to have a ready reference. My wife and I were out on a date around the time we were coming up with our family's list of values and top priority. She borrowed a waiter's pen and wrote them on the paper tablecloth. After dinner she neatly tore off that section and stuck it to our oven, where we could see it every day.

4. Don't make snap decisions. Companies (and families) tend to take on commitments out of peer pressure or guilt, before they understand what's involved. Often it's not a single big project, but the dinner date, bake sale, and sleepover that all add up to make a family frantic. Which leads us to number 5.

5. Understand your opportunity cost. In business, when taking one course of action prevents a company from accomplishing other tasks, we talk about opportunity cost. One of the best decisions we ever made was to let our sons opt out of Cub Scouts (the opportunity), which was eating up our weekends (the cost).
Why cut that and not, say, guitar lessons? We decided that Cub Scouts was a little too regimented and that music better suited our style. Knowing the decision reflected one of our values -- creativity -- removed any sense of guilt we might otherwise have had.

6. Assess which balls bounce and which ones break. Sometimes tasks that feel urgent can actually be ignored. (In other words, those balls will bounce.) As we were getting ready to have our fourth child, I was overcome by the urge to landscape the front yard and to start going to Pilates. Would the house be overtaken by a jungle?
No. Did I need to touch my toes again? Well, eventually that might be nice, but not right now. What I really had to do was prepare my home and family for something that mattered -- the arrival of Baby Number 4. The rest could wait. Real Simple: How to worry less

7. Don't confuse long-term strategies and short-term tactics. For parents, this can take the form of discussing what to have for dinner in the same breath as whether to change jobs. Or trying to make a decision about finances or discipline while brushing your teeth and getting the kids off to school. Vital issues can get short shrift or be entirely lost in the minutiae if you don't stop, filter them out, and return to them later.

8. Meet often to review your progress. Don't groan. This is not a bad episode of "The Brady Bunch." But families do need to meet once a week, for no more than 10 minutes, to review what's going on and what adjustments need to be made to their time and priorities. We've noticed that our twin boys get a sense of clarity and accomplishment from our Sunday-night discussions. They like talking about how we're doing as a family and seeing their role in it.

9. Get out of the "office" from time to time. Most executives I work with develop a condition I call adrenaline addiction: They're convinced that they can never slow down and think about the big picture because there is so much to do right now. Which inevitably ends in burnout.
Parents should also take time as a couple to review calmly the bigger picture of their family, even if it means just going for a drive with the radio off. A long date or a weekend away can pay huge personal dividends even if you have to shell out for a babysitter.

10. Welcome productive conflict. When executives can't argue, they can't make good decisions and commit to them. Families are the same. Remember -- many of the ideas I've described here were born out of a messy, tense discussion I had with my wife when I clumsily critiqued the way we were running our family. For the record, she's not mad at me anymore.

Easter 2009

Another day full of events, another reason to thank God for our church. Easter is an amazing day to realizes the grace that we live in. God amazing love is to give himself to us in order to save us. One of my favorite parts of the bible is reading Isiah 53:4-12. The amazing tangible words of his love is moving every time I read it.

Back to yesterday where we had an amazing time, the Church will decorated really nice and the choir did a great job singing. It is a blessing to have such committed people. It is the reason behind the success of the church is having committed heart behind every ministry and service.
Soon after church, we enjoyed a sit down dinner that uncle Reno and other prepared. What a great service he does. His heart to help always humbles me.

Tony and Bisho opened their home again afterwords and we went to their home and enjoyed watching an Arabic Movie. Silvia and Micheal showed up and we celebrated their birthday before they take off to Egypt.
Again, We are blessed to have such amazing people and friends. You are a blessing and source of encouragement.

For full screen pictures click
Slide Show

Arabic Church on Twitter

Yesterday we celebrated an amazing day of Easter when we enjoyed every one company at a sit down dinner at the church. Tony Zaki took this picture during dinner. He posted on the new Arabic Church Twitter, to follow what goes around the church and any events please go to Arabic Church Twitter and click follow.
At the same time you can follow what Z Couple are doing by going to Z Couple Twitter.
I am going to post the Easter pictures by this evening...

Couples: Make Love vs. Fall in Love

I didn't know how to word my title this time around, but I thought it may bring your attention and make you read til the end.

Our society teaches us about how to fall in love and how great it is. It commercializes the passion and the emotions that love brings to our lives. We grow up watching, learning and fantasizing about the day we fall in love and live above the clouds.

I am not here to declare war over the emotions of love and how up lifting it is, but I want to explain that real love is not all about the emotions and living above the clouds.

Let me give you an example, The Christan love isn't words of hope only, when Jesus promises for example to love us and protect us, He isn't just giving us words of hope, love and emotions of security. No, His words are tangible love the goes beyond the words and the emotions. Real love is what keep couple together when the emotions fades away. Maybe I shouldn't say fades away, I should have said, Love is behaviors that we take after the heat of the emotions cools down.

So, I am encouraging every one: after falling in love, is to start making love to your partner. I am not only encouraging you, but challenging you to develop those behaviors that shows/express and make love. Try to make it a habit to make love and express it in away that your partner recognize it.

Here is what I mean, find every thing you know about your partner that make him/ her feel loved and start taking a daily tasks to express it to him or her. Start expressing/making love to your partner on daily basis. Don't let your love stops at the emotion limits, instead take it beyond that commercialized boundaries and stand strong for the reality of love that support, protect, encourage and love without seizing.

Remember I Cor 13.4-8a ... Love does not seek its own.

Couple: Pray for your Partner

Recently, I had this thought on my heart. How much time do I really allocate to pray for my wife? In my last post, I talked about how to take a deeper look inside of ourselves and find what is it that we need to change in us in order to become the person that pleases God and your partner.

Here, I have to confess that I failed to continue on with my prayers to my partner. Yes, we pray together every night, but the question here, how much you spend on your own putting your partner in front of God asking Him to bless, heal and give wisdom to your partner.

Remember, The prayer purpose isn't asking God to change your partner. It isn't for the purpose of complaining about your partner and every thing that he or she does wrong. Instead it is the time that you lift your partner to God's hand and ask Him to work on him or her without any bitterness and emotions of complaining.

For example, If it is your wife, pray that God uses her up to her capability to be the wife, and the mother that pleases God. If it is your husband, pray that God uses him to lead the family to the right path that God allows to you.
Here is a few things that we all need to remember as we pray for our families and partners.

• Know for fact that God loves them as it is and that you aren't praying for them to show you are better than them.
• Praying with faith, know that God is Good and capable.
• Pray with patience and persistence, make it also a priority.
• Pray with a humble, repentant heart, acknowledge your own faults as you pray.

The greatest encouragement I can offer you about praying for your family is to ask God to search your heart and show you anything that needs removing from your life. The release of God’s Spirit upon their lives begins in your heart and soul. Find a time and place to meet with God. Get to know Him as “our Father.” See how mighty He is in heaven.

Don't forget to pray that you be the positive influence person in your partner life and that God uses you to implement God's plan in your family and into your partner life.