Planning the Defenses

As we spend time with the various people in our "spheres of influence," we many times hear pieces of advice that echo as one person after another shares. It's as if God himself is saying one thing and repeating it, time and time again.

Today, I was reminded yet again of the differences between man and woman, from a requirements gathering perspective. As my fiance and I were finding out the results of yet another in-depth talk on our soon to be marriage, one of her neighbors happened to be walking by. He began to share a little bit of some of the things he was reminded of this weekend at a Christian men's conference. As he shared, it quickly became one of those surreal moments where we knew the message was meant to be and meant for us. The pearl of wisdom we were left with was this:
"It's all about love and respect."
As a woman longs to be loved, and a man desires to be respected, it makes things tough when it's not happening. It's tough for men to love when they don't feel respected, and it's tough for women to respect, when they don't feel loved. But found in the tension of this catch 22, we found exactly what we ought be doing. However, if I am not being respectable, and my fiance is not being lovable, it makes things even tougher.

This is just one of the many examples of what "planning the defenses" looks like; simply making the effort to learn and apply wisdom to our marriages. On the same note but with a little sidestep, weighing the scales of reactive and proactive choices on a regular basis is a good assessment tool in anything we do. I've found and confirmed with the opinions of many that being reactive is often chaotic, and being proactive prevents many foreseen and unforeseen stressful situations. I've also found that a big difference between proactive and reactive living is the commitment.
When leaning reactive, it's easy to jump due to a lack of commitment. It's easy to run around our problems instead of face them head on.
On the flipside, when leaning proactive, it's not easy at all. It's a continual choice of commitment that requires planning and action, followed by more planning and action.

To wrap it all together; when we begin "planning the defenses," we're not only making a decision to build our castle wisely, we're committing to a life of action, we're committing to building our marriages according to a plan, and we're choosing to prevent potential problems by proactive living. But most of all, we're simply committing our lives to each other. Sound reasonable?