July 11, 2025
“We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you… As a fair exchange – I speak as to my children – open wide your hearts also.” (2 Corinthians 6:11-13)
To paraphrase this passage, Paul is suggesting that each of us has a communication “flap” on our heart. In our relationships we should be face-to-face and heart-to-heart with our communication flaps open. The hard reality is that we are often back-to-back with our communication flaps down and tightly closed.
Paul’s solution is that someone must say, “I am heart-to-heart with you, and my communication flap is open. Be heart-to-heart with me and open your communication flap.”
We face communication challenges every day in our family, places of work, and interactions with people. When there is a communication problem it is important to realize that someone must initiate a solution by saying, in spirit and in principle, “I am heart-to-heart with you, and my communication flap is open. Be heart to heart with me and open your communication flap.”
You may be totally amazed at how taking that stance can melt the obstacles between you and the person with whom you are having a challenging relationship. This can be a communication circuit breaker that restores communication in a relationship.
Bacteria multiply in the dark but cannot live in the light. If we do not have good communication in a relationship, misunderstandings multiply like bacteria, but when communication is restored it’s like we have turned the light on in our relationship. Most bacteria will die, and we can address what’s left in the light of restored communication.
Dick Woodward, 12 July 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 21, 2025
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God…” (Philippians 4:6)
Have you ever heard someone confess, “I’m a control freak?” My response to that confession is: “Welcome to the human family!” The truth is sometimes we are all control freaks. Both Jesus and Paul taught that we should not be anxious. That means don’t worry. They both taught us not to worry about the things we cannot control – like the height of our body or the lives of other people.
Speaking as one control freak to another, the thing that really freaks us out is what we cannot control. In what Alcoholics Anonymous call the “Big Book,” there is an illustration with which we control freaks resonate. We think that life is a stage on which we are directing a play. The people in our lives are characters in that play. As the play director we give them their scripts and their cues, but when they don’t respond to our direction, our frustration drives us into a bottle or some other addiction.
When I was a college student, I had a mentor who wrote a poem with these lines: “You can’t control the weather or rainy days, but you can control the emotional climate that surrounds you. You can’t control the height your head will be from the sidewalk, but you can control the height of the contents of your head.”
After quite a few of those lines his punch line was: “Why worry about the things you cannot control? Accept the responsibility for the things that depend on you.”
Follow the advice of Jesus and Paul and don’t worry about what you can’t control. “…but in everything by prayer and supplication…let your requests be made known to God…”
Dick Woodward, 20 February 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 11, 2025
“Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:8)
Human love is often based on performance. When we apply the love of Christ, our love is not based on the performance of those we love. That is what makes this love indestructible. The love of Jesus Christ is a tough, indestructible love because it is unconditional.
In wedding ceremonies, many couples make the unconditional vow: “…for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part.” The living Christ, empowering the love Paul prescribes in 1 Corinthians 13, is the dynamic that makes that possible.
We can also make the application that these ways of love are irresistible, because they are inspirational. Peter, ultimately, could not resist the positive reinforcement of Jesus calling him a rock. I personally could not resist when my mentors prayed, imagined, dreamed, hoped and believed in my ultimate potential.
If you ask Christ to make your life a conduit of His love to your spouse, children, and those who are difficult to love – you may make the joyful discovery that they will ultimately find the love of Christ to be irresistible and inspirational. They will begin to believe what you pray, imagine, dream, hope and believe about and for them.
For 28 years, I experienced the gradual and relentless onset of paralysis, which reduced me to a helpless, bedfast quadriplegic. During that time, I have learned much about the love of Christ from my wife, who is the most selfless, others-centered person I have ever known. In all these years she has never taken a day, weekend or vacation from her care of me. There are very few people in this world who know how I do what it means to be the recipient of the unconditional and indestructible love of Christ.
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 4, 2025
“For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?” (2 Corinthians 2:2)
Every relationship we have is a two-way street. According to the Apostle Paul, whatever we send down that street comes back up the street and has a dynamic impact on that relationship. Jesus conveys this same truth with a positive spin when He teaches hypercritical people, “With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matthew 7:2)
This was a marketplace metaphor in the culture where Jesus lived. If you were selling oats and a fellow merchant was selling wheat, when you bought from each other you could request to use their bushel standard of measurement. Paraphrased, this means whatever standard you use when you give to another person in a relationship, they will use when they give to you.
We cannot control the weather, but we can control the emotional climate that surrounds us in a relationship. Communication is not only what is said but what is heard. It is not only what is said but what is felt. How does the communication you are contributing within a relationship make the other person in that relationship feel? If you’re sending negative waves into that other person’s life, is that likely to inspire positive waves in your direction?
Paul gave us another great teaching on this subject when he wrote, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for the building up of others, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)
Dick Woodward, 05 February 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 1, 2024
“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16)
Years ago when I lunched with a friend on Mondays, I’d always ask, “How are you, Skip?” “Great, wonderful, marvelous and tremendous!” he’d always answer.
On many Mondays I’d not had a good weekend, and life was not great, wonderful, marvelous, and tremendous for me. But this guy was always emphatically optimistic. After this pattern continued for some time, one Monday I asked him, “Tell me something. If everything wasn’t great, wonderful, marvelous, and tremendous, how would you answer my question?” “Oh, I’d probably lie to you,” he responded.
I then decided to rephrase my question. I asked, “How are you, really, Skip?” He worked with a group who memorized a verse of Scripture every week. “Frankly, if you really want to know,” he said, “My verse of the week is, ‘Hang it on your beak, freak!’” We then had some honest conversation, what I call Reality Contact.
What James had in mind is that if we are honest with each other, we will be burdened to pray for each other. As a result of our mutual prayers for one another we will be healed. If we are not honest when we meet together, we will not pray for each other, and mutual healing will not happen. One translation reads that our honest prayers will explode with power!
We are missing something important if we do not have “Reality Contact” with a believer we trust. Do you have that kind of relationship with anyone?
Dick Woodward, 01 November 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 9, 2024
“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God Whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20)
Tradition tells us that the Apostle John escaped from the Isle of Patmos by swimming out to a ship that was bound for the city of Ephesus where he lived to a very old age and was buried. With white hair and a long white beard, he was so feeble they had to carry him to the meetings. While at the meetings he would bless those who attended and cry: “Little children, love one another, little children, love one another!”
As we have seen in this chapter, John gives us ten reasons why we must love one another. One reason is that God is love and if we plug into the love God is we make contact with God, and as we become a conduit of God’s love God makes contact with us.
John gives us a second reason that if we say we love God and we hate our brother we are liars. Because if we do not love the brother, we can see how can we love God Whom we cannot see? His point is that it’s not easy to love God because we cannot hug a Spirit. There is an inseparable vertical and horizontal dimension of this love that God is.
These two dimensions form a cross.
We cannot say we love God if we do not love one another.
Dick Woodward, 09 July 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 25, 2024
“For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?” (2 Corinthians 2:2)
You can’t control the weather or rainy days, but you can control the emotional climate that surrounds you. There is a principle of relationships that tells us communication is a two-way street. Whatever you send down that street comes back up that street and into your relationship with another person.
That is the essence of what the Apostle Paul is teaching: “If I say things that get you down who is going to build me up and pull me up?” The reality is that you are probably going to pull me down because misery loves company. This is a negative way of stating the positive truth that if I say things to you that build you up, I have equipped you to build me up.
In another place Paul wrote: “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)
In every relationship you have – with your spouse, children, parents, those you work with, those you work for, and those who work for you – make the commitment to say and do things that build them up and minister the grace of God to them. You will be surprised by joy to discover what you send down that communication street will come back up that street and into your relationship with that person.
Jesus gave an unstable man named Simon the nickname Peter, which meant stable like a rock. After calling Peter a rock for three years Peter becamea rock. Try that in your relationships.
Dick Woodward, 29 June 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 13, 2024
“Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:8)
Human love is often based on performance. When we apply the love of Christ, our love is not based on the performance of those we love. That is what makes this love indestructible. The love of Jesus Christ is a tough, indestructible love because it is unconditional.
In wedding ceremonies, many couples make the unconditional vow: “…for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part.” The living Christ, empowering the love Paul prescribes in 1 Corinthians 13, is the dynamic that makes that possible.
We can also make the application that these ways of love are irresistible, because they are inspirational. Peter, ultimately, could not resist the positive reinforcement of Jesus calling him a rock. I personally could not resist when my mentors prayed, imagined, dreamed, hoped and believed in my ultimate potential.
If you ask Christ to make your life a conduit of His love to your spouse, children, and those who are difficult to love – you may make the joyful discovery that they will ultimately find the love of Christ to be irresistible and inspirational. They will begin to believe what you pray, imagine, dream, hope and believe about and for them.
For 28 years, I experienced the gradual and relentless onset of paralysis, which reduced me to a helpless, bedfast quadriplegic. During that time I have learned much about the love of Christ from my wife, who is the most selfless, others-centered person I have ever known. In all these years she has never taken a day, weekend or vacation from her care of me. There are very few people in this world who know how I do what it means to be the recipient of the unconditional and indestructible love of Christ.
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 9, 2024
“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances may be.” (Philippians 4:11)
Paul includes patience as part of his prescription for peace. Throughout the history of the church, patience has been considered a great virtue by spiritual heavyweights like Augustine, Thomas à Kempis and Francis of Assisi. Why is patience such an important virtue? For starters, patience is one of the nine fruit of the Holy Spirit profiled in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Throughout the Bible we are continuously exhorted to “wait on the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14) In our relationship with God we might call patience faith-waiting. Nothing will test and grow our faith like waiting on the Lord. When we are praying for something and receiving no answer, God may be teaching us that there are times when faith waits.
In our relationships with people, patience can be called love-waiting. I had no idea how selfish I was until I got married. I had no idea how impatient I was until I became a father waiting for teenage children to grow up. I find the Lord wants to grow two dimensions of patience in us: vertical patience, by teaching us to have a faith that waits on God, and horizontal patience, by teaching us that in relationships, love waits. Love is the primary virtue through which the Holy Spirit wants to express the life of God through us.
While impatience is a peace thief, vertical and horizontal patience are supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit that give us the grace to accept the things we cannot control. Patience is the virtue God plants and grows in our lives while teaching us to wait on God and trust God to do what only God can do about the things we cannot control.
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Peace
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 27, 2023
“For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?” (2 Corinthians 2:2)
You can’t control the weather or rainy days but you can control the emotional climate that surrounds you. There is a principle of relationships that tells us communication is a two-way street. Whatever you send down that street comes back up that street and into your relationship with another person.
That is the essence of what the Apostle Paul is teaching: “If I say things that get you down who is going to build me up and pull me up?” The reality is that you are probably going to pull me down because misery loves company.
This is a negative way of stating the positive truth that if I say things to you that build you up, I have equipped you to build me up.
In another place Paul wrote: “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)
In every relationship you have – with your spouse, children, parents, those you work with, those you work for, and those who work for you – make the commitment to say and do things that build them up and minister the grace of God to them. You will be surprised by joy to discover what you send down that communication street will come back up that street and into your relationship with that person.
Jesus gave an unstable man named Simon the nickname Peter, which meant stable like a rock. After calling Peter a rock for three years Peter became a rock. Try that in your relationships.
Dick Woodward, 29 June 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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