Justin kicked off this mini-series the other day with his 5 Things. Today, I want to share with you 5 Things I wish I knew before we got married. We hope these things are helpful to you as you prepare for marriage or as you grow in your marriage.

1. Doing everything the “Right...

Today and tomorrow, we are going to do something at RefineUs we hope will be very helpful.  Each of us will be sharing 5 Things We Wish We Knew Before We Got Married. I’m sharing today, and Trisha will be sharing with you tomorrow.

(For the record, I have like 20 things I...

As a father and husband, most of my choices aren’t between right and wrong. I don’t struggle most of the time with choices that I know are going to hurt my kids or my wife. The temptation that I face most of the time are between choices that are easy verses those that are right. Easy...

One of the biggest mistakes I make as a Christian is that I underestimate the spiritual battle I’m a part of every day.

For years, I thought that people who talked about spiritual warfare were a little off their rocker. I knew it was in the Bible…but in my mind…it wasn’t...

Understanding WHY is imperative. One of the things we’ve learned over the past few years is that WHY we do things in our marriage matters more than WHAT we do.

There have been so many times in our marriage that I did something simply to get Trisha off my back. My motivation wasn’t one...

There are a lot of things that I know I should do.

In my relationship with God, “I should” has crossed my mind hundreds of times. I should read my Bible more. I should spend more time in prayer. I should journal more consistently. I should...

When Trisha and I separated, more than anything else I wanted to know why our marriage imploded. More than anything else I wanted to know how we grew so far apart. More than anything else I wanted to figure out what I could do to make sure that if our marriage survived, this would never...

A few weeks ago, I had meeting a scheduled first thing in the morning. I arrived to this meeting with a set of expectations. I knew what I wanted to say in this meeting. I knew what I wanted to get out of this meeting. I knew what I wanted to leave with at the end of this meeting.

My vision was...

Before Trisha and I separated, we argued a lot. We still have disagreements now, but NOTHING like we used to. Our disagreements now are about things that matter.

They aren’t about something that happened five years ago; they don’t have rabbit trails that loop in my mother,...

Have you ever bought a new car…it doesn’t have to be brand new car…but a car that was new to you? Before possessing that car, you never really saw one on the road. You could have passed one often, but you never noticed it. But when YOU buy that car, all of a sudden it seems...

There are few things in this life that are more exhausting than living for the opinion of others.

I lived most of my life for the opinion of others. Trying to impress others. It was pointless in the end.  When I had an affair, was separated from my wife, resigned from the church I pastored,...

I’ve always thought that the opposite of fear was courage. Growing up, every time I would express fear, my dad would tell me to be brave. When my kids tell me they are scared, I remind them that courage isn’t not being fearful; courage is overcoming fear. So many sermons that...

Sin has a way of messing with your mind. It wears you down. I think that sin’s greatest strength is not that it causes you to take giant leaps away from God…its that it lures you into tiny, unnoticeable, justifiable steps. It doesn’t always come against you with blatant lies;...

What a rich few days it has been talking about forgiveness. I am so thankful to Trisha for her willingness to share so honestly about her journey of forgiveness. She is going to wrap up the series tomorrow with a post on restoration.

A few weeks after the affair, Trisha and I sat in a...

Do you ever feel that when you hear the word forgiveness it feels one-dimensional? Like your supposed to forgive and then just move on? You know the famous line “forgive and forget.”

As I stated in my first post of this series my pastor Pete spoke on forgiveness Sunday. He...

If you are reading this post then you most likely have struggled with forgiveness. Most of us have a story of being mistreated, betrayed, abused and the list could go on and on. Being a Christian and not forgiving the person(s) that hurt you seems to make no sense all. But lets be honest, even...