Transcript: Seventh Principle - Return Blessing Rather Than Insult

Video Transcript: Seventh Principle – Return Blessing Rather Then Insult

The seventh principle is returning blessing rather than insult. And here we have our blessing stone. Because this is just a beautiful word just to even hear the word blessing, bring such peace. And when I say the word insult, that also brings an emotion and it's not peaceful. Now, insulting relationships can happen quite quickly, especially if there's a conflict that's at the forefront, there can be trading of insults the way that he looks, or she looks the way that she cooks, or that she cleans the house, how he repairs or how he responds to the children. 

There is always the ability to say what we don't like about our spouse, and it can come across very insulted rather than a blessing. But again, the Bible calls us to bring blessing. Let's look at first Peter 3:10 through 11. For the one who desires life, to love and see good days must keep his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit, he must turn away from evil and do good, he must seek peace and pursue it. Would blessing and that insult would that be keeping the tongue from evil, and the lips from speaking deceit, turning away from this. Now to give blessing, it does mean to step aside, it means to refuse to retaliate. And remember, it would take everything inside someone to not retaliate if they have been hurt. Now I actually, I have a couple of concepts that I use to help my couples, this has been done in my session. This has been done at home. 

I'm asking for start overs at times. And when I asked for a start over what this looks like, is, I have asked a couple to step back outside of my office, I will then again open my office door and say, welcome, come on in, I've been waiting for you. And we actually will start over. So if the beginning of the session had been a lashing out, like I couldn't wait to get here. I want to tell you what they had done. I would even stop the session. And I would say I'm willing to listen. I want this to be a time that we can speak honestly and not having salt. We are going to start over. 

Now I would ask for the same thing at home. Perhaps a spouse is is home preparing dinner, let's say it is the wife, her husband comes home and he's had a very rough day at work. He walks through the door. And the first thing he says is, you mean suppers not ready yet. I'm so hungry. I can't believe you're still cooking? Well, there's an insult. There was some you he was attacking a little bit of spouse, not just the dinner, the spouse could say, could we do a start over. And if there is the emotional maturity to hear your spouse, and the person can stay grounded enough, then the husband could actually step back outside. Even knock on the door, be kind of cute, have the wife go open the door. And then he could say hi honey, I'm home. Oh, dinner smells so wonderful. Now what a difference. 

Immediately, there is a whole attitude of giving blessing. There is no insult from the moment that he walks in. Now with this ability to be able to stay with blessing. I also talk about a concept that I learned at a workshop and one of the speakers talked about a 12 minute principle. The 12 minute principle is that there are four minute time frames throughout the day, that would help the couple ground. And in so doing they will feel blessing in that moment. It could be the first four minutes in the morning when they get up. It could be the first four minutes when they see each other at the end of their work day. And it could be four minutes before they go to bed at night. Now that four minutes should be sanctuary. So they might give each other a hug. They would just hold each other. They would possibly say a little prayer, or they would say it is so nice to see you. I'm home from work or when getting ready for bed. This is a time I just want to hold you. This is the time let's just sit on the bed together and have our four minutes and breathe. There is blessing just being in that time period together. And those time periods would not have any part of insult. 

Allow for those 12 minutes and those would be that point during the day that that could happen. Now remember that there could be the need to ask for God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit is essential. It means to do good. It means to ask the Lord, how can I give blessing, it might be just a gentle word, it could be a touch, it could be a hug, or a pat on the shoulder. And do you know that you can do this? And even have two different thoughts in the brain. For example, if the husband walks in, and he smells food, but he is also very frustrated because he wants his meal now, his mind could have two paths to go down. The first could be I'm going to tell her right now that I am very upset that dinner, is not ready. The second could be, I'm going to let her know that I smell the aroma of the food and I am going to go behind her and give her a hug. Which one are you going to choose? If you're not an amygdala hijack, you will be able to have rational brain to choose which one is going to give blessing rather than the insult and then please be a blessing. Seek peace, pursue it and your conflict will enamel it be able to be much more easily resolved.