The Power of Blessing Kids

Okay, take five seconds and bless me.

What? Just five seconds. Go ahead.

I'm ready. Go. You are a life-speaking blesser of everyone you're around.

Grocery store, parking lot, obviously at our church, our boys, our family. Oh, man. When we go over to the grandkids' house, they run out the door. And I wish they were running to see Poppy, but they're running to see Nonny because you just, you're a blesser. That took way more than five seconds. You knew I was going to say that. You set that up.

But you know what? Even hearing you say that, like it fills me up. It's your turn. You are a man of integrity. Okay, that's good enough. I want to keep going.

I know you do because that's what you do. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. But it is true when we use our words to really tell people what we see, it's like an air hose to our soul. Like it feels good. And I think we doubt it sometimes, but we don't even care if we think, no, if it's true, it just feels so good.

Yeah, there's a power to bless. And I just mentioned the title of the book, and we have the author in here, Alan Wright, with us again today. Thank you so much for being back with us. Welcome back to Family Life Today. I'm so glad to be with you. Just loving meeting you guys and talking about this that's so dear to my heart. Thanks for having me. I wish everyone listening, I wish all of our listeners could see you, Alan, because the second you walk into the room, everyone thinks, I want to know that guy.

I want to sit beside that guy. Because you exude love, acceptance. There's a joy about you that really is the essence of who you are.

And you can tell that Jesus fills you up. It's one of these, in fact, I could tell, as I read your book, and now that I'm meeting you, this isn't just a book for you. This is your life. Your book obviously is called The Power to Bless, How to Speak Life and Empower the People You Love.

But I'm not kidding. Sitting at lunch and then as we discuss, it's like, this isn't just a book. This is like your life story. It is my life story. And it's the story of discovering myself blessed. And it is the discovery of how to bless others and to raise a family under the sound of blessing and to lead a church under the sound of blessing. And, you know, eventually when we really grow in the Lord, we can reach to the point that both Jesus and Paul said, bless your enemies.

So this is my life story. And in many ways, it's God's story. One who blessed Adam and Eve, then said, be fruitful and multiply. And then all throughout scripture, this theme that runs through it where there's like an invisible force at work. And will the people believe themselves blessed?

Will they believe that the promised land is theirs or will they believe they're grasshoppers? And in many ways, it's our story. And blessed people end up blessing other people. And those who have not been blessed have a deficit and impoverished place that just must get nourished if they're ever going to live out the destiny God has for them. Allen, you talk about how the Bible has so many of these lessons where we see a father blessing his children. Is there actual power in that?

Because they would lay their hands on them and bless them. And I think this is, you know, isn't it interesting in the Bible where there are times where there are things that are not defined for us the way we'd like for it to be. And I think it's because, you know, especially in Western culture, we're so rationalistic that mystery is harder for us.

But it is something that is on display rather than being defined in some objective way. But what we know is this is something that's much more than mere encouragement, because the children of the patriarchs craved it. It's what they wanted. It's why Jacob was willing to lie and cheat to try to get it. What could he get that he thought that he could get by stealing just to have his father lay his hands on him and speak words over him?

Why was it that when Joseph learned that Jacob was nearing death, he had to rush because he wanted to get his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, there so that they could be blessed? What is it when David blesses his household? And why is it that when Jesus is born, this mysterious figure appears, takes the baby Jesus into his arms and blesses him? So I think that at the simplest level, yes, it's a powerful thing to encourage somebody. But at the deeper level, I think the message of the story of the Bible, the big story of the Bible, is that there is a mystical, invisible force at work, not magic, but something that is at work, that when you receive it, there is a grace to flourish and experience favor that would not have been there. I remember, maybe you do as well, there was a book in the 80s, I'm guessing, that came out by Gary Smalley called The Blessing.

Yes. And people would ask us back then, you know, what's the best parenting book you read? And I said, the blessing, it wasn't a parenting book. It was just what you're talking about. It was just Gary and John Trent actually saying, as authors, saying, okay, what was in this Hebrew blessing from the father to the firstborn son? They said there's five aspects.

And I want to throw these at you. And you tell me, is that what was there? They said, I'm doing this from memory.

Yes, it was so memorable. It was almost a mystical part of what you're saying as they tried to get a handle on saying, okay, there was meaningful touch that was involved where the father laid a hand on, there was a spoken word of life or affirmation, there was attaching high value that wasn't dependent on performance, but based on identity as my son. And then there was picturing a special future. In other words, I see this for your future. And then the last part was interesting. It was a commitment to that future.

So in other words, it wasn't a dad or a mom saying, I think God's going to do this in you. It was like, how can we come alongside and help that happen? You know, like you've got a gift as a musician. Well, guess what? We're buying a piano, you know, that kind of thing.

Like we're going to actually happen. So as you think about the power to bless, is it all of that? It's all of that.

And their work on this was pioneering and fantastic. And it is all of that. And it is even more, I think, in the sense that we aren't just picturing a special future. We are envisioning it with our faith for it to come to pass. And I think that's part of the reason when they say, you know, you have an active commitment towards it, which is to say that you are participating because you believe it can come to pass. That's what makes it not empty words. And I think that in many ways, I like Dallas Willard's definition. One time he said, it is the actual willing of the good of another.

I paraphrase that. But what are you saying is, you know, that feeling you have, like when you love somebody so much, you could think of this, just somebody, whether it's your child, spouse, friend, you love someone, you just, you want something good for them. You want it. This is a way I was talking, you know, before the show, how much I love kids. And I got grandparent fever. I want to get me a baby in my hands because I love my kids when they're little babies.

And as I was saying to you guys earlier, the thing I was looking forward to before I ever was a parent was I've been loved by God a lot. And so I have something to give. You want to give it away? I want to give it away.

Yeah. And I do it every week as a pastor and a preacher. But the idea of having a little life that I hold in my hands like clay, I put it this way.

I was looking forward to having somebody that would believe me entirely because that's what our children do. They believe us entirely and they receive it like a sponge. And it is literally like helping to shape a soul. If you want to understand what blessing is, you think of what that thing is in you that's just, you so want the good of another and you know something good about the other and you just, you would so want to just somehow impart it to them. That is what blessing is all about. Now, some parents might say, well, you know, a little too much is too much. Can you over bless a child?

You can't. You can praise them in the wrong way. You can't over bless. There's no too much blessing. As I address this in the book, blessing is both grace and truth. That's good. You better explain that because you often think it's only grace.

You think it's only grace. And I think that this is really important. And I put this section in the book. There's even a kind of a little picture of some quadrants there. And it's interesting, you know, most people that, you know, they're drawn, they want to hear the stories of blessing and all about the power of blessing.

But when you really can get somebody talking about different ways that we hear speech and the way we speak, it becomes really intriguing. So just very briefly, I think that to say that we've seen God's glory according to John 1, because he came in the person of Jesus, full of grace and truth, is to say that that which is glorious is seen when grace and truth are together. And if we have all grace, but not truth, then we might be really nice, but we're just going to be leading people into error. And the truth sets us free.

So there's no freedom without truth. But if we have all truth and we don't have grace, then we might, you know, be clubbing people over the head with the Bible, but nobody's going to want to listen to it, and they don't open their heart unless they're loved. So if you could envision, in a sense, that grace and truth as these continuums, and that as you just think about grace just running like this line endlessly and truth that cross sections across it, the quadrant in the upper right would be where there's grace and truth, I would call that blessing. But the opposite of that, in that lower quadrant, no grace, no truth, that's curse. Curse is a negative forecast that is also rooted in its own perverted form of faith. You know, fear is a form of belief. It's just a belief that something bad is going to happen. And so it has no grace, no love, and it has no truth because it's false.

That's the problem with curse. So when it's received, we're not only being unloved and criticized, we're believing something's not true. But there are other forms of speech than blessing and curse. And I would say that if you could think about what is grace with no truth, the term I would use for that is amoralism, and I think that's the spirit of the age. And that's where people go, oh, you're just going to, you know, you're just all about blessing, and you can bless people too much. No, if you're amoralistic, meaning it's grace without truth, that's where we're saying to someone, it doesn't matter, you know, right or wrong.

You just follow your heart. And it almost wants to give no direction to someone. And it's not a blessing at all. The other side of that is truth without grace. And that's moralism. That's Pharisaism. And I think, in fact, you know, I've led groups and just training to discern what is it that's coming out of my mouth at any point.

So in the book, I present different scenarios, like, you know, real life scenarios a parent might face, you know, your child has had a small accident, thankfully, you know, he's okay, but he was texting while driving. How do you respond to that? With blessing. Well, sometimes people would think blessing says, well, don't worry about it. Boys will be boys.

And just remember, the main thing is, I love you. That's not a blessing. It's not true. It does matter. A blessing doesn't simply say, I love you. It says, I love you.

And here's truth. So a blessing in that situation to sound much more like, I love you more than anything. And I most certainly forgive you for this. But you are a treasure and God has an important destiny for your life. Therefore, it's unacceptable to ever text and drive.

I cannot sit here and say to you, it doesn't matter, because it matters deeply. Know my love and know the future that I see for you. My wife had a beautiful way of disciplining our kids with blessing. You know, when your kid is just doing that thing is just like, that's just, I can't even believe they did that. That's just the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life.

And everything here wants to just, you know, call out how dumb it was. But instead, she would just look at me and say, God gave you an excellent brain. I expect you to use it. So what blessing does is, whether it is simply affirming and encouraging, or it is correcting even in our parenting, what blessing is saying is that real change comes not by withholding our blessing, dangling it like a carrot to try to motivate someone to change. Real change comes by proclaiming someone's identity, so that when they act in a way that does not align with that identity, they see it as a violation of who they really are.

It's good to define it. Now let's talk about why don't we do it? Because I have to tell you, like Dave honored me beautifully and blessed me by saying that I'm a joy giver, and I do speak life. And I will say, probably for the first 30 years of my life, I never did. And I think part of that is because I came from a family that we were told we are winners, and we need to be leaders, and we need to win at all costs. And they didn't say, try your best. They said, be the best. And so I grew up with this striving mentality, and I always saw people as being my competition. And so why would I affirm them when I wanted to one up them? And so if I saw one of my friends that looked really cute that day, or I thought she was amazing, I wouldn't say that because she's my competition. And I found that that striving of always trying to be the best was exhausting.

And I thought these wonderful things about people, but I also saw my own insecurity and thought, oh, I'm not nearly as good as them, or I don't measure up to that. So when we talk about why don't we give it? Does it have anything to do with things like that?

Absolutely, it does. Because unless we find ourselves so deeply secure in the love of God, it's just hard to find ourselves affirming another. We are, on the whole, in our sin nature, we're self-absorbed. As soon as sin came in the world, so did shame. So they began covering themselves, and that's where all of the competition began and the jealousy.

So the very first siblings, there was murderous hatred. And so the gospel of Jesus Christ changes everything because God has loved us perfectly and infinitely, and we are infinitely rich in Christ. And so the first thing I would say is if someone's struggling to have the motivation to bless or has those feelings as you so honestly share that you once struggled with, which is the norm for most people, start with this. Soak your life in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you tend to hear the gospel message like this, be good, serve, give, and God will love you, you'll never have it. But if you hear the gospel for what it is, God loves you infinitely, has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Christ, therefore receive him and serve him.

If you get the order right, it'll change everything. And so soak in the gospel. I think that's one of the things that we just need to do, and I think that we all need that.

I need it every day of my life. The other thing is we haven't, we just haven't learned it. We haven't seen it modeled. And so I think a lot of people think it's not going to work. And that's a big part of the reason I wrote the book. I just want to convince people this works. And part of it is I raised my kids in this. I've seen it.

I know it. It works. And by that, what I mean is that there's a tendency to think that if I affirm this person, they'll quit trying. Yes, it will enable them. It will enable them.

I totally used to think that about Dave. Like I'm not going to praise him. He'll think I'm satisfied and it will enable him to stay the same. And yet the whole time she's critiquing and criticizing me, it didn't work. It didn't work. It doesn't work.

It doesn't work. And because it's not God's way. Right. See, honestly, really, that's hell's way to withhold in order to produce an anxiety to try to make someone. So in other words, when we withhold our blessing, what we're doing, let's say it's to our child, is we're essentially saying, I want you to worry.

Yes. I want you to worry about whether I'll really bless you. And then out of that fear and worry, you'll try harder. Well, guys, worry and fear are the farthest thing from the heart of God, right? That's what hell trades in.

And what heaven trades in is love and faith. So I'm thinking of of Julia Mancuso, who when she was a little girl, she dreamed of being an Olympic athlete. And she drew a picture of herself, a little crayon picture of herself skiing down a hill. And at the bottom, it said something like, Julia Mancuso wins the gold. And, you know, she went on to win, I think, two or three golds and the downhill. And that story came out in one of the Olympics, you know, all those great stories that came out. Well, I think about that story where she got a vision of this is who I am.

Now, what did that do? Did that make her quit trying? Did that make her say, well, I'm going to get a gold medal, so I'll just go sit on the couch during my teenage years and eat potato chips and play video games?

No, no, maybe some other kids are doing that. But she sees herself as an Olympic athlete. So she's out in the weight room and on the slopes and training and up early in the morning. In other words, blessing instills hope. And hope empowers us and changes us.

It's when we become hopeless that we quit trying. Yeah, exactly. We'll talk about the tadpole.

Yes. Well, it is one of the funniest stories ever. Our daughter came home when she was little with this tadpole that we're supposed to, you know, for a science project, watch it grow legs and the tail and become a frog. And so all these instructions we got with it, we got a bowl of spinach and we got to feed it this little spinach. And my wife's like, oh, this tadpole. I'm like, honey, it won't be here long. It becomes a frog.

We release it in the wild. And so, you know, a week goes by, nothing. Two weeks go by.

We're still blowing spinach. We got this tadpole. Three weeks go by.

A month go by. I mean, two months go by and we just got a tadpole. We bump into Abby's little preschool teacher and we say, hey, Nikki, when is this tadpole going to, you know, we've got a defect.

Yeah. When's the, when's the metamorphosis happen? And she said, what are you talking about? I said, our tadpole is just a tadpole. She said, no, that's not possible. I said, oh, everybody's already become a frog. It doesn't happen like that. And I said, no, we got a tadpole.

You can't make this stuff up. Our tadpole a year later is a tadpole. How many people have ever had a pet tadpole? But that's what we have. We're still boiling spinach.

Cause you know, when your kids got a pet. Is that even scientifically possible? Yeah, it's not even possible. It's not even possible.

I'm Googling. It doesn't even happen, you know? And, and so I'm learning all about this. I mean, even more time goes by.

It's, it's a year and a half. We got a tadpole. We got a tadpole swimming around. You can't even make this stuff up. This is just, sometimes God just gives me something just so I can see it.

You know, he did it for the prophets. He'd have weird things happen just to teach them something. So our daughter goes to some summer camp or something and they all get an aquatic frog. So she brings home the frog and we're like, okay, great. We had a tadpole. Now we got a frog. So at first I was like, put the frog in with the tadpole, but we're looking at how big this tadpole is by now. We're afraid the tadpole might eat the frog.

So instead we put the frog bowl next to the tadpole bowl and that's it. The next day, my little girl, Abby is on the phone. I'm at church and she's calling me and she's so excited. I said, daddy, daddy, daddy. I said, what? What?

Call me now. She said, you're not gonna believe what? I said, what? What? I said, what? She said, that tadpole's become a frog. I said, what? And I just dropped everything.

I went running home and y'all, I'm not making this up. Overnight, that tadpole had sprouted some legs, dropped its tail and within two days was a full frog. And so we always declared it just needed to see what it's supposed to be. And once you can see it, you can be it.

And I think we're a lot like that. That's a sermon. Once you see it, you can be it. If you can't see it, you can't be it. But if you can paint a picture of this is actually who you are and this is what life in Christ looks like.

And this is how I see who you are. I think what happens is people rise up to meet the vision that's spoken over their lives. So don't ever think that like blessing is something you dangle like a carrot to try to mote.

That just creates fear. What blessing does is it releases love, which casts out fear and that builds faith. We thrive in an environment of hope and faith, and that's what blessing imparts.

Many of us can probably remember a point in time in our lives when we were younger, when an older person, teacher, parent, whatever family member, looked at us and kind of raised the bar in our life in a way that was positive and made us want to jump higher, made us want to not settle for what we were settling for. Dave and Ann Wilson have been talking with Alan Wright today and he has unpacked for us how to bless our kids, how to really raise the bar in their life and release them into the blessings God has for their life. We can shape our kids and the future in so many wonderful ways.

Let's do it through the avenue of blessing. Alan Wright has written a book called The Power to Bless, how to speak life and empower the people you love. And of course we love our kids, of course we love our family members. This is the kind of resource that can really help shape us into men and women who are people of blessing to our spouses, to our friends, to our neighbors, and to our kids as well. We want to make this book available to you as a way to say thank you for your gift to Family Life Today. If you head over to familylifetoday.com and make a donation of any amount all this week as a thank you, we will send you a copy of Alan Wright's book The Power to Bless. Family Life Today is listener supported. When you donate, you're making Family Life Today possible and available in your community in fresh new ways.

Thanks in advance for your support. Again, you can find us online at familylifetoday.com or by calling 1-800-F-as-in-Family, L-as-in-Life, and then the word TODAY. If this blessing conversation has been a blessing to you, or any of the Family Life programs have been helpful for you, we'd love for you to share today's podcast with a friend or a family member or neighbor. And wherever you get your podcast, it can really advance the gospel effort of what we're doing at Family Life Today. If you'd scroll down and rate and review us. Now tomorrow, Dave and Anne Wilson are going to talk again with Alan Wright on how to be a light and bless people you don't actually know.

It might be easy to bless the people we do know, but he's going to be talking about how to bless seemingly strangers. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.