The greatest paradox: Give up our life to really get abundant life. Give up striving for yourself and care as much about the other person as yourself. This makes a big difference in a relationship.

Idea: the more you enjoy something, the better you will be at it-marriage, job, parent, friend, etc. Enjoy your relationship, enjoy the other person.

Step one: Attitude. Have a good attitude about your partner.

Do you look forward to seeing him or her at the end of the day? You can change your attitude to enjoy seeing that person. It is your attitude that does it. Before I talk about how to change your attitude let me say how important attitude is because that will help change your attitude.

Most people don’t realize how powerful and important attitude is. US companies consider attitude more important than skill or experience.

Joe felt bored with his marriage. When he got off work he did not look forward to going home to see his wife. He had a bad attitude about her. Then he read a book about how to have a better marriage and put the ideas into practice little by little in his life. Now he really enjoys seeing his wife and children. He has more fun in life and more fun with his wife and family. He is more fun to be with also. His whole family is happier because he has a better attitude.

We’ll look at some of the changes Joe made to achieve this.

The more you enjoy your relationship with that person, the better it will be. The more you enjoy your job, the better you will be at it. The more you enjoy your wife, the better a husband you will be. The more you enjoy your husband, the better a wife you will be. Kids also.

Michael Jordan enjoys basketball. Einstein enjoyed physics. Mother Theresa enjoyed helping poor people. Show me any great person and it is almost certain they enjoyed what they do.

Have an attitude of enjoyment. Your attitude determines how good your life is, the quality of your life is not determined by how rich or smart or talented you are.

Every time you find yourself having a bad attitude about a person, change it immediately. Immediately is the key idea. Changing an attitude is easy to talk about but tough to do. The following four steps will help.

Step two: get rid of all anger

That means anger at your spouse, your boss, your kids, etc. We all deal with anger. Books on how to deal with anger sell like hotcakes because so many people struggle with anger.

Anger causes poisons to pump into the blood system and can slowly kill or make a person sick. Blood taken from an angry person injected into rat can actually kill the rat because of the toxins in the blood that are created from anger or other negative emotions.

When you first start to get angry, stop your anger. Count to ten or think about peasant thoughts. Take a walk. Do something pleasant. Think of the good qualities of that person, not the bad. Listen to soothing music. Eat a cookie. When you are tired or hungry you get angry easily. If you come home from work and get angry, go lie down or eat a snack.

Substitution principle: Substitute something pleasant instead of something damaging, like anger. This is a very powerful idea that can help anyone stop bad habits.

Step three: talk more, have more fun

Do this, go to a restaurant and watch couples. See if you can guess whether they are married or not. The dating ones seem more excited and seem to be trying harder to please their partner.

Make eye contact – dating couples make more eye contact than married people. Why should this be? Don’t let it happen to you.

#1 thing women want in a marriage is love and/or communication. #1 thing men want is respect.

If you are married have a date night. That means get a baby sitter for the kids and go out with your spouse. Have fun. If certain topics bring arguments, agree not to talk about them.

Learn how to talk about problems without blaming or fighting. Don’t get mad when discussing problems.

Don’t blame the other person for anything, Change yourself first and then help them change.

Make a covenant (agreement) and write it down. It is amazing how much a convenant can help. This means rules to follow or to abide by in the relationship.

Step four: think about things from your partner’s point of view

This is an idea that can make any relationship better, think about how you look to your partner/wife/husband/family/anyone. This is also good for getting a raise-think about how you look to your boss. A man came home tired every evening and was angry at his wife because she met him at the door with a baby and told him to take care of him. But he needed to think about her day and everything she had to do all day long and all night long.

Company leader said his workers didn’t look at themselves as their boss would. Be gentle with other people, you never know what problems they have. People often don’t understand the extent of their partner’s problems.

Step five: pray

Amazing things happen when people pray. Families that pray together stay together. They have done research about this and it really helps to pray together. Some people who are not Christians come to me and say they prayed about something and didn’t get it. I ask them if they are a Christian, they say no. Well, they need to change that first. Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian.

Make a plan, how you will implement these ideas in your life.

God loves you. God adores you. He loves you so much that he knows everything you think and do. He even knows how many hairs are on your head. He knows every detail about you. He cares about you so much he died for you and he won’t let anything happen to you that is not for your own good. Romans 8:23

1 Thess 5:16 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Christianity is a religion of love and joy.

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”