One year of flame
taken from AllProDad

One cynic described marriage as one year of flame and forty years of ashes. I believe he thought this because he related love to feeling, not to a daily decision. The feeling of love comes and goes and comes back again, like your appetite.

The commitment of love is unrelenting and sure. Loving commitment is an act of the will - a self-disciplined lifestyle. Act in love towards your wife even if you don't always feel like it. The feeling will return in time, and flood your soul with joy.

Here are some ideas for fanning the flames of romance.

Huddle up with your wife tonight and ask: How can I love you better?

Read more at AllProDad

Christ at the Center

Michael Horton says we need to once again let our lives and churches be driven by the gospel.

Interview by Mark Galli | posted 11/19/2009 10:14AM

The phrase "making Jesus Lord and Savior" does not appear anywhere in Scripture (any more than does "personal relationship"). It assumes we are the ones who make God something. It is hard to imagine a Jew saying he made God his liberator and Lord in the Exodus. No. God made the Israelites the recipients of his saving and lordly work. So we don't make God anything; it is he who makes us his people. The Good News is not that Jesus has made it possible for you to make him Lord and Savior. The Good News is that he has actually saved and liberated you, and that he is your Savior.

Read more at ChristianityToday

Eight Great Date Nights

Need a kick-start to your relationship? Check out these ideas.

Ginger Kolbaba

4. Make it a three-course progressive dinner. Rather than going out to eat at one restaurant (how boring!), choose one restaurant for your appetizer, a different one for your main dish, then a third one for dessert. Share one course each if you're low on cash. If you have trouble deciding which restaurants, write down several options for each course, put them in a hat, and pick. As you drive to each, discuss the type of restaurant you would open and what types of each course you'd choose to serve and why.

5. Give an encore performance! Think back to one of your favorite dates or activities you two had before you were married, but that you don't get to do anymore. Was it to go antiquing? Book shop hopping? Hiking? Playing board games? Decide to do it again. While you're on the date, talk about why the date or activity was so special and what it meant to you. What did you discover about your spouse during that time that attracted you? Tell your spouse!

Read more at Marriage Partnership

The Impossibility of Thanksgiving

Why gratefulness is more gift than duty.

Mark Galli | posted 11/25/2009 10:45AM

A YouTube segment from Conan O'Brien's show entitled "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy," with guest comedian Louis C.K., has been making the rounds. In it, Louis talks about how he was on a plane that offered in flight Wi-Fi access to the Internet, one of the first planes to do so. But when it broke down in a few minutes, the man sitting next to him swore in disgust. Louis was amazed, and said to O'Brien, "How quickly the world owes him something that he didn't know existed 10 seconds ago."

Louis then talked about how many of us describe less-than perfect airline flights as if they were experiences from a horror film: "It was the worst day of my life. First of all, we didn't board for 20 minutes! And then we get on the plane and they made us sit there in the runway for 40 minutes!"

Then he said mockingly, "Oh really. Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? … Everybody on every plane should be going, 'O my God, wow!' … You're sitting in a chair in the sky!" And then he mocks a passenger who, trying to push his seat back, complains, "It doesn't go back a lot!"

The segment is humorous because we recognize ourselves in it. That's human nature. We take things for granted so quickly, so easily fall out of a state of gratefulness.

Read more at ChristianityToday