Imagine the passion of romantic love being kept alive all through your lifetime. Is it possible? Absolutely! The pain of a divorce or living with a stale marriage is impetus enough for each of us to choose to invest deeply into keeping romance alive in our marriages. If first love is lost, the Bible is clear that we can go back and do the things we first did and restore our first love (Rev. 2:4,5). Now that is exciting! The principles below can be applied to restoring our first love with God and our marriage partner.

How are your communication skills? Have you taken a course on how to be an excellent communicator? Have you journaled, asking the Lord specific questions about how you can improve your communication style?

According to the Carnegie Institute, 85% of financial success is communication skills. My guess is this 85% success rate extends to every area of life, not just financial success. We need excellent communication skills with our spouse, our family members, at church, at the workplace, and in social gatherings. What are the skills that God would have you develop to become a better communicator? The two-way journaling questions below will allow God the opportunity to instruct you concerning enhanced communication skills.

I trust real life experiences more than just about anything else. My biggest focus is getting my life experiences to line up with what the Bible says my experience is supposed to be. I basically don't trust anything I hear on the news. So I decided I need to actually communicate with some black people about their experience with the police. I always prefer first-hand information as I find it more trustworthy. 

I have never had a conversation with a black police officer about any sort of racial issue. I have never even talked with a black man about racial issues. For some reason this is just an uncomfortable subject. I remember a seminar I did 35 years ago at Bishop Joseph Garlington’s church. I made a complimentary comment to my black audience saying, “You guys are better than whites in this area" (I forget now exactly what the area was). Bishop Garlington interrupted the seminar and asked me two or three times what I meant by “you guys.” And I was afraid to provide a more specific answer because I didn’t know if I should call them Black or Negros or African Americans, and I assumed that if I chose the wrong phrase it would be offensive to them. So yes, I have never had a conversation with a black man about racial issues. This is about to change!