The Power of Blessing Others

Did you remember when Cody had a dream with little like him and be in the NFL and oh yeah and he's the littlest person in on every team and were driving that little tiny training right okay let's been NFL. This isn't gonna happen. How do we break it to him. We gotta tell him this is a ridiculous trip, but then it happened to felt as a 57 welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue relations that matter most time in Wilson Sunday Wilson and you can find is we live today.com or on our family life, family life today. That's one of the dilemmas you have as a parent you know how do you bless your children and be honest at the same time and so I think every parent wrestles with that and that somewhere and talk about today.

The power of our words as a mom and dad and how to bless her children. We got the guy in the studio is been helping us last couple days talk about blessing Alan Wright thank you for being back in family life today will find you like so much and so that maybe give my hope for professional still not out but is so good to be with you by traveling yet obviously your dad in a pastor and even I know your your 400 stations around the country you read this book, the power to bless and it's a lot about our words and speaking life as we said in our children. But that very thing. If you got a child who has a dream like that, but it could be some this just is crazy right now they can dream bag and you happen, but since you like that I can never be a frog or to be a terrible. How do you speak blessing with truth to that.

Yes hello hello always irately and always truth so Jesus was 50-50 use on a present grace in 100% truth. So, whatever our response is was measured by that is my response both grace and truth. So like, for example, our son Bennett is a really good golfer and of all the many things that I hope speaks vision into his life. I thought I saw you had the skills for the photos on the plus yeah I love golf and we played a lot of golf together so that help also but is not tall in stature and he loved basketball love basketball eats wasn't that good at it and just was not tall soda been silly for me to say I could really see you be a NBA player because I didn't see that I see that all I did see that he could really enjoy golf and be good at it. So I would affirm that. So what I would say to that parent when the child saying you know I want to be stuck in the first place. On her.

The child's dreams.

I love it when you dream bag.

God loves it when we have to face. That's a beautiful thing to aspire to. Okay so your fruit you can affirm the dreaming, I think so.

Often what happens. The parent hears a child say something like that. The parent rattles off too quickly or you'll never be that good. Not good enough.

What you've done is you, not just help steer the direction you've crushed not just a dream, but you've crushed the joy of dreaming. So when our children are a little we let them dream.

We want them to dream, but it doesn't mean that we come alongside and actually say these ridiculous things like you can be whatever you want. That's not a blessing. In fact, I think sometimes people just receive it is pressure know you could be whatever you want to be if you just set your mind to it will. I guess the fact it didn't happen is because I didn't set my mind to it and it also is just like now. I think that it's like okay when affirm your dreams but as they grow, we are speaking what we have is authentic discernment enter their lives and so when I didn't see something a child was maybe dreaming towards it their way is that with grace, you begin steering them towards the truth you don't – hopes needlessly. You don't come lashing it on with harsh words that have no grace attached, so whenever we speak with authentic love. There can be a receptivity to the truth and I think therefore ask yourself what is grace and truth say not just truth or just grace and don't – dreams but affirm faith when you see it, and yet steer it towards the authentic that you see in that child's life and you don't know Bruce, our audio engineer very well. He's been sitting in here with us in listening and working. Show us what it looks like to offer Bruce a blessing you really don't know very well except for meeting him yes three daughters what that looks like can we bless people we don't know very well on hundred percent because the first place.

Well I did meet Bruce for like two Bennett yeah so I found out is a dad and I'm sitting in the studio with him is going see that he's committed to excellence in his work and I could even just see when you mention your kids so love dance around in your eyes is already do know some things about but also know that before I even met you I could say this of you your made in the image of God and that therefore you are bearing the image of father God in the world.

I know that before God spun the cosmos into its place that he already had a destiny lined up for you and I know also because I see dramatic faith that in Christ you were chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, and as such are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and so see I can just turn not knowing you and say Bruce is good to meet you and I thank God for you. I see already in your life that there are qualities are very Christlike.

You can see it just in meeting you and I believe God is using that and I can bless who you are is a dad and I can say. May God make you see from a Manasseh may make you favored and wives and just able to pour out the father's heart of God to your to your kids and I can say bless you and your work. This is important work that you're doing with family life and your shaping others lives and so what's in your ear as you listen to the sound of production being made, you're actually advancing kingdom and God bless you and that you seat you know more about people and you realize you want to cry. I am trying actually because there's so much power. It makes us rise up to want to become all those things and it's everything you spoke is in the word and it helps us to remember this is what God says about us and we have the power to give that away to other people in our world in our culture, giving one of the greatest gifts could receive and I would just said what you just said to Bruce, the average person never hears twice a minute, isn't like they don't hear that in a week or a month, never heard it, even when you spoke is like wow that's just truth to a guy you barely know but it's all true about Bruce and if we think our children regularly get that they don't get it at school.

They don't get it from their peers because they're in competition with one another and then when they come home and they don't get it from mom or dad. They long to get it and they will go on a search and probably ways we hope they don't look for it to get it. But if they get it from our data me if we took a minute every day at the dinner table whatever and did what you just did just grab some some moment today to say hey son, I just saw something tonight just to run away like dad not just I will say this right way to go yet just as exhibited traits of what a man does just want to say that to you and they walk out the door. You think when a big deal that sticks it sticks it goes into becomes part of you. It shapes you are probably everyone of her listeners could identify if you've ever had any moment like that from a parent or teacher or friends now.

Someone who spoke something like that.

You remember it shapes you and you know I think part of the thing I want people to know is it so easy. It's really not hard to give it to just give everyone the simplest examples of parenting just for listeners to say if you're if you're parent. This is how easy it is when that were one day driving to the golf course to play golf piece maybe 10, at most, and he loves golf love golf and he just piped up and said dad can you be addicted to gambling coming from something ago we were better on this golf game I guess was coming from and that he had read about a professional golfer. He heard something on TV about professional golfer who had a problem with.

I knew he was talking about and I thought how I explain this to him and so eventually I just settled on the simplest approach and I said Bennett. I know that that golfer just to play the best golf courses in the world's richest famous essay but I know some about his family. I know some of his life. And I said I don't think that he really feels that good about himself and when you don't feel that good about yourself. It's a bad feeling and you can look for many ways just have a good feeling and he must get it from gambling and you get from other things and that's it. I think that's at the heart just quiet from and also in it just a classic moment he just by those that well. I love myself laugh or cry because they were words of gold to me which was the fruit of being blessed.

Well, I think what it was that same day or not we play golf and on the first hole he had about whole and any golfer can understand is about whole. Oh yeah is a cumulative score, and when you're around on the first hole and all play many devils okay so he had like a double or triple in this, the kid who can chew pretty close to porn you know and is Google so I see it, his face turning red. He's a very even keel kid, you know, but the golf course will bring it out on you know anybody though Matt pulled together you know I said sometimes you still have been around, but even those club event though. Tantrum heals it together and he kind of takes a deep breath, and he has a good hold. The next hole on the next and actually had a liberty or to have a ruling around us like that well on the way home. This is how simple and natural blessing as this is what I want for our families okay and it is wonderful.

We would have every week a set apart meal where at least once a week I would formally speak a blessing to everybody in the family. But what really want is this just part of life.

So just in the unassuming moments were riding home and I said Bennett. I said Doug around today.

It was fun.

He said things that I said that you know you that bad first hole. He said yeah I said you know I saw you start to get frustrated and then you held it together and you went on and you you had a good round and I said you know there's a phrase for that. The Bible is called self-control.

So that's the fruit of self-control. I suggest you still kid us about us what you know that I already see a lot of self-control and you and I believe you're going to grow into a young man I get emotional. I don't know why I believe you're going to grow into a young man was a lot of self-control and I just added an Bennett. In my experience men in this world of self-control go very far. I never have my dad say that anything like that to me one time most sons and daughters haven't held that take maybe 30 seconds or minutes.

It is us and take along the way to describe the steps is very simple. It is when you see of virtue and someone else may be more clearly than they do. You see it so you become a treasure hunter and others think of anything see that and then you affirm it with a positive vision with your words that you speak by calling out and identifying it, and then you attach to it. Positive possibilities for the future. So you affirm the treasure and you say this is how I see it being part of your identity is not just a complement, not buttering somebody up. It's helping them see who they are. The person of self-control and then you attach positive possibilities we can do that with anybody at any time.

It's not hard but it's laden with spiritual power and Bennett indeed came and is a man of about as much self-control as a buy ever been around when he excelled so much in law school and was awarded a prestigious clerkship in the federal level, the federal judge was speaking to him one day and said I know have you done so well Bennett he's gonna modestly sound. The judges looked at me said I think you underestimate your ability to concentrate for a long period of time what what that is self-control right I mean like I'm sitting there taken a test laugh, and the other day like standardized as we got to read the passage and then answer questions about it. I like reading the passage in Luke it out the window you in life, whatever it is, if you can have the fruit of self-control. It's not just about not having angry outbursts. It's about the whole direction of your life is something like that so important to our life does not begin with a little seed a blessing like that.

I think it does.

It's interesting, I had to start memory for me being seven years old of something very much like that my family was moving into the new city, new school, I was in the first grade so we don't usually have profound memories of her. So glad you moved to that city. That's where we met, but before that I had Artie gone through sexual abuse from the time that I was four years old and so nice person. Super insecure and I had a first grade teacher I had originally gone to school who didn't only see the best in me and I had three siblings before me that all had learning disabilities and so when I came into that same class at the same teacher.

She probably presumed a lot, and I knew even though we didn't name it the worst reading group I was in the worst reading room and I was also in a class for speech therapy, and I remember feeling really bad about myself. I moved into this new city and on the first day of the first grade, but this new teacher. I was so scared I walked into the class and she got down on her knee. She put both hands on my shoulders and she looked at me in the eyes and she said you are beautiful little girl and I can tell you're really smart and she said I would predict that by the end of the year.

You can be the smartest girl in this class. I mean, I feel like it was yesterday that I heard those words and I remember feeling like no one is ever said anything like that to me in my life and it's so interesting. She put me in the best reading group, the most advanced reading group and I couldn't even read everyone in that class was reading even in the lowest reading groups and she put me in the best reading group and just like that. Yeah, I rose up, and by the end of the year I was neck and neck with this one little girl that I was the best reader in class exactly what you're saying Alan when somebody sees it, and you may call it out of you.

You rise up. You think I can. And so I think it be cool and our time together with you just praying and speaking blessing over our listeners think that would be really powerful love to do then and maybe to start with the words, all the women that are listening in to say, would you let me stand, then maybe for a dad who never spoke these words, but to sort of receive it. You know, from someone who's representing God but also may be representing what someone important to your dad or someone else was unable to say and just wells up within me first to say I'm glad you were born and I'm glad you were born a girl and I'm glad that God envisioned you and made you who you are.

There's no part of your being that is accidental. It is God's plan and he has put you together in a way that your soul is unique and your gifts are like no one else's. Not just that your fingerprints match no one else's.

It's that the whole spiritual DNA of your life is like no one else's. And so I want to bless you and say how much you matter to say that I like to bless you to be fully free. Rejoicing in God to know that not only does your life matter, but that in the days to come.

God is going to use you. I like to build a say to all the women that are listening for the ways that you have been hurt for the smallest little wounds in the deepest trauma that God wants you know he's always been there. It wasn't the God who was missing when you went through your difficult time and I'm blessing you to have a new narrator in your life. This fear wouldn't be the narrator of your story, but love would be the perfect love of God to cast out all fear. I'm blessing you that you would be under the sound of the gospel. More and more full of faith and expectancy of what is to come. There's no telling what might happen tomorrow when God is directing your steps and men. Maybe the words that every son wants to hear from a father but seldom hearers let me just speak it on behalf of someone who may be just did not essay it.

I'm proud of you. Well II know I don't know you know were separated maybe by digital broadcast radio airwaves, but I'm proud of you through the heart and the eyes of God and in the best sense of the word I want to say that God's pride in you and any fatherly pride in you is not because of your accomplishments but because of who you are and saw bless you to be released from performance anxiety, a bless you to enjoy the sun ship with the father. I bless you to know that your mistakes, your sin does not define you. I think of Joseph, who when he resisted the temptation of Potiphar's wife. He didn't do so out of his willpower, but he said my Masters put me in charge of his whole household. How could I do such a thing. I'm blessing you to know your identity. This is the way of accountability and this is the way that you're going to find more more victory over sin, you are no longer a slave to sin. You are in Christ, already already seated with him already, though you may not feel it already raining with, and there is more power at work in you by the Holy Spirit and you realize I'm blessing that in you, man. I'm blessing and thanking God for you all to anyone under the sound of my voice.

What a privilege it is to say, the Lord bless you and keep you and be kind and gracious his face shine upon you and give you his peace and my wife was if I were about paying compliments and giving blessings to people who I knew and didn't know it would go the distance that I wouldn't even be able to fathom a lot of times we held back and we didn't give the complement or maybe we felt prompted to do a nice gesture but we didn't take the opportunity.

David and Wilson have been talking with Alan Wright today about the power to bless people we don't even know when God calls us to be a blessing. Why because he first blessed us.

Alan Wright has written a book called the power to bless how to speak life and empower the people you love. This is been a really important conversation and he's written a very important book is the kind of book that you could read through yourself, read through with your spouse or even gift it to a friend or family member to unlock their potential on how to be a blessing to others. Why again because God has so richly blessed us. You can head over to family life today.com or you can give us a call at 1-800-358-6329 the 2000 F's and family L as in life, and then the word today and speaking blessing.

One of the best ways that we at family life can bless you is by praying for you. I am the president of family life David Robbins here with me today talking about one of the best ways to bless the people who are part of this ministry and help make this ministry possible. And that's by praying for you. You were so grateful to have a team that specifically prays for the prayer request you send in and I get to be a part of that team as the president of family life and then just today.

I'm praying for the family life today listener whose son just got diagnosed with schizophrenia for a husband that's praying that their wife doesn't follow through with filing for divorce in and then I just read this from Jason and just prayed for Jason where he wants to be the husband and father that God calls them to be in the he just says in this prayer request. Family life podcast to been a huge encouragement to me these past number of months my wife and I will also be headed or we can remember in February. Please pray it will help us heal our marriage in ongoing ways and Jason, I just want you know where praying for you and for all of you who were sitting in your prayer request know that our team sincerely prays for you and were grateful to get to journey alongside you in your pursuit of God and also those other meaningful relationships in your life with your spouse or your kids and and those in your home and family and so were thankful to get the lock arms with you.

Thank you to those of you who give that allow us to keep ministering to people in their time of need. You are making a difference and more grateful for you that's true. We are deeply grateful and if this content today or any of the family life programs have been helpful for you and love you to share today's podcast with a friend or family member is a way to advance what were doing in this ministry, and wherever you get your podcast can really push forward the gospel effort of family life today. If you scroll down and write and review us, that would be super helpful. Now tomorrow or in hearing from anywhere talking about parenting troubled children in stepfamilies. That's our conversation tomorrow. We hope you can join us on behalf of David and Wilson. I'm shall meet you back next time for another edition of family life, family life today is the production of accrued ministry helping you pursue the really