Participants: J.D. Quinn (Host), Gordon and Waveney Martinborough
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000289
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00:29 Welcome to Issues and Answers. My name is J.D. Quinn.
00:34 I like to start each program out with a scripture, so let's 00:38 go to Romans 15:1-3a. "We then who are strong ought 00:43 to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please our 00:47 selves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good 00:51 leading to edification, for even Christ did not please 00:55 himself. " Amen. I'm excited today because I 01:00 have a special couple from Orlando, Florida. It's the 01:06 Martin-Burls, Gordon & Waveny. I just welcome you to our 01:09 program today. I know that we are going to be talking about 01:13 something that everyone would like to have a little bit more 01:17 information on and that is for resolving conflicts in marriage. 01:22 Can we take just a few minutes to tell who the both of you are? 01:27 Let's start with you, Gordon. 01:30 Okay, J.D., I am a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, have been 01:35 for more than 40 years. I have served the church in various 01:40 capacities, as a district pastor, as a departmental 01:44 director, administration at the conference level, at the union 01:48 level and at the division level. But through all of the years, 01:53 two things have been my obsession: One, family life 01:59 and, two, evangelism. That's where the passion is up to 02:04 today. Here's my wife Waveny. We have been married now for 02:10 44 years. And they are happy years. Every year gets sweeter 02:15 as the time goes by. She will tell you a little more about 02:20 herself. 02:21 Okay. I am Waveny Martin-Burl. My profession is education. 02:27 Actually I taught preschool, elementary school, high school, 02:32 and at college, which is now a university. But for the last 10 02:38 years, I worked in Interamerican Division as the first 02:42 Women's Ministries director. I also worked as the director for 02:48 family ministries right there at the division. 02:52 And we are now recently retired. 02:53 And you have been retired for how long? 02:56 Oh, just a year, year and a half. 02:59 Okay. So basically I am assuming 40 years with the conference. 03:04 Is that right? 03:05 Yes. It was with the organization at different 03:10 levels. Ten years at the Interamerican Division, head 03:13 office in Miami. We have moved North to Orlando where we are 03:18 continuing to do what we used to do for Interamerica, now it's 03:23 for the world. Our ministry is called Happy Family Bible 03:28 Seminars International and we have our web site that could be 03:34 accessed to see what we have to offer. It's 03:37 www. happyfamilybsi. com. We have a toll free number 03:47 800-291-3060. We serve the world. We are happy to be 03:57 here today. 03:59 Well, today our topic is Resolving Marital Issues. 04:04 Let's just start going down that road and just bring to 04:10 light what we need to do. 04:11 All right. The fact is that conflicts are inevitable. 04:17 We have them in the home, we have them on the job, in school, 04:20 in church, everywhere. But we are focusing on the family 04:24 right in this presentation. The family conflicts vary. Some folk 04:30 fight over little things, some fight over big things, some 04:35 fight over money, some fight over sex, some fight over 04:41 in-laws, some fight over rearing the children. Different people 04:46 have conflicts over different issues. But whatever they are, 04:51 they need to be resolved. Why? Because conflicts are like 04:56 termites. You leave the termites there, they don't die. They 05:01 eat away at your building. In the same way conflicts eat away 05:06 if they are married. So it dies. In order to make this 05:12 presentation practical we will be using a scenario and it's 05:17 about Bernard and his wife Alice. I will pretend to be 05:24 Bernard and she will pretend to be Alice. Bernard wants a 05:29 career change. He is tired of doing what he is doing so he 05:35 is going to classes at the university in the evening. He 05:40 is moving into information technology where the money is, 05:46 right? His wife Alice is an administrative assistant in an 05:50 office downtown. She comes home first, picks up the baby, 05:55 starts to prepare supper. Whenever Bernard comes he is 06:00 tired. He sits in his favorite chair watching TV, waiting for 06:04 supper. Well, the baby cries, but Bernard doesn't even hear 06:09 the baby. So his wife is cooking, taking care of the 06:13 baby, fixing this and that and she gets tired of that after a 06:18 while. But she doesn't say anything until today. Then 06:25 the baby screams. She loses everything and she was having 06:28 Bernard's favorite bowl to put his food in and she just smashes 06:33 it on the floor. So Bernard now is angry and he is calling her 06:37 bad names. She calls him worse names. So that is our scenario. 06:42 We are going to work through how can Alice and Bernard 06:47 resolve their conflict because these six steps that they should 06:52 take are the six steps that anyone should take to resolve 06:56 any conflict that we have. 06:59 So anyone that is out there, they probably need to get their 07:03 pencil and paper out quickly because these are important. 07:07 Because this sounds like a true life scenario 07:08 Well, let's go to Bernard and Alice. 07:13 All right. So the first step, we are going to look at the first 07:17 step and that says to speak wisely because we need to know 07:23 how to speak. There is a text for it: Colossians 4:6 and it 07:29 says... the apostle Paul tells us let your speech be always 07:34 with grace. Season it with salt so that you may know how to 07:40 answer. So for Alice to speak wisely she has to do four 07:46 things. #1- She needs to identify the problem, the 07:52 specific problem. The problem, of course, is the television; 07:57 he's looking at television. The second thing she needs to do is 08:03 to express her feelings. She probably was angry. That's a 08:09 feeling. She probably felt like a slave, doing everything. The 08:14 third thing she should do is to say what she wants because 08:18 Bernard cannot read her mind. But at the same time, she needs 08:23 to say what she wants. What she probably wants is for him to 08:29 help her either in the kitchen or with the baby. The fourth 08:34 thing is the most important of all of the four is that she 08:40 should begin with "I", using the pronoun "I" and not you. 08:48 Because you see when I say you I'm pointing the finger at you. 08:54 Right? and I'm blaming you for my feelings. 08:58 And making me angry. 09:00 Right. But when I say "I", I'm pointing the finger at me and 09:07 that reduces the tension and it promotes peace. 09:11 For example, what should she say? 09:16 She could say "You know, Bernard, I really have a problem 09:20 with this television. I am very angry with you. I really 09:25 need some help. I'm in the kitchen, I'm preparing the 09:31 dinner. I am taking care of the baby. I need some help Bernard. 09:36 All right, so we are saying that the first step for resolving a 09:42 conflict is not getting to the conflict. It's that the person 09:47 who has the conflict must know how to speak about it in a way 09:52 does not aggravate the other person and that is by using 09:59 "I" statements, speaking wisely. The second step is that the 10:07 person who is being spoken to should listen actively, and 10:15 actively is the important word. How he is to listen. 10:20 James 1:19 says "Wherefore my beloved brethren let everyone 10:26 be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. " The NIV says, 10:32 "be quick to listen. " In fact God has made us two ears and 10:38 only one tongue, and that's deliberate. We should learn to 10:43 listen. Now how should Bernard listen? Four things: There are 10:46 four steps for speaking, there are four steps for listening. 10:52 Step #1 is he should acknowledge what his wife is saying. That 10:56 means he should be looking at her when she is talking; good 11:00 eye contact, positive body language to let her know that 11:05 she has his attention. Put down the remote. Yeah, or the 11:10 newspaper or whatever. #2- He should interpret what she is 11:15 saying. You know, when she is talking, when anyone is talking. 11:21 The words we speak are only 7% of the message. The tone 11:28 of voice, that tone of voice, 38% of the message and the body 11:38 language is 55%. So when we speak of listening actively 11:42 we mean trying to get 100%. So he has to look, listen and try 11:49 to get how she is feeling. He is interpreting the message. 11:55 And after he acknowledges and interprets, then he needs to 12:01 confirm that he got the right message because he could be 12:06 getting the wrong message. Confirming is what the waiter in 12:12 a restaurant does when he takes your order. He repeats, tells 12:16 you back to make sure that he is going to do what you want 12:21 him to do. So Bernard should confirm that he did get the 12:26 message and he does so, point 4, by what we call a restatement. 12:31 A restatement is telling her back what she told him, but 12:36 using different words to let her know that I got what you said 12:41 and I got it straight, I got it correct. So for example, 12:49 Bernard's restatement would be "Alice so you are mad with me 12:56 for sitting in front of the television. You think that I am 13:02 a lazy man, not helping you as I should and you want me to 13:07 give you some help with the baby or with some other part of 13:13 the responsibilities there in the kitchen. So that is the 13:18 second step. The first step is she must know how to speak. 13:25 The second step is I must know how to listen. That brings us 13:31 to the third step. 13:32 The third step say now we need to exchange gracefully. And why 13:38 do we do that? 13:39 Well, we need to recognize that that also is a biblical 13:43 principle. And, J.D., in our seminar every point is biblical. 13:51 Every concept for family life is found in scripture. It is there. 13:58 The Bible says, Philippians 2:4 "Let each of you look out not 14:03 only for his own interests, but also for the interests of 14:09 others. " That is a powerful text. You see a problem is like 14:14 a dollar bill and how many sides does a dollar bill have? 14:20 Two sides. There is no money that has one side. So every 14:25 story has two sides. In fact, it has three sides. It has your 14:31 side, it has my side, and it has the right side. And the 14:39 right side is neither your side nor my side and you know that as 14:43 a counselor. The two people come and they tell you two 14:46 different stories and neither of them is 100% right. The truth is 14:53 somewhere in between. So up to now we have heard her side. 15:00 I was told don't talk, listen. But now that I am finished 15:07 listening and she is satisfied and her blood pressure is going 15:13 down, now is my time to talk. I am now the speaker with the 15:18 "I" statement and she will become a listener with the 15:23 restatement. So now I want to tell her, I am finally going to 15:30 tell her why I am sitting in front of the TV. "Alice, I am 15:34 sitting in front of this TV day after day because I am under a 15:37 lot of stress; on my job there is stress hour by hour and that 15:44 is why, as you know, I am trying to make a change in my career. 15:48 I am going to evening classes. But the problem is that 15:54 something isn't clicking there and I am failing the class 15:58 and it looks as if I will not be able to attain my goal. I have 16:06 stress in the day on the job, I have stress in the night and 16:09 between those two I need time, I need to relax, 16:14 I need time out and that is why I sit in front of the TV because 16:19 that provides me with some relaxation, some relaxation. 16:23 Now I have used the "I" statement, now I am telling her, 16:29 and she is going to use the restatement to tell me back what 16:34 I told her. 16:35 So Bernard you are saying that you have stress on the job; 16:41 that's why you want to go to night school. Then you also 16:44 said that you are failing your class. Oh. So there 16:56 is stress on the job and there is stress in your night school 17:03 and you seem as if your dream is just crumbling to the ground. 17:06 So that's why you need time to relax and that's why you look at 17:11 the television when you get home. 17:13 That's right, that's right. It is only now that we are 17:21 understanding one another. It is only now that we have been 17:24 communicating, telling what is on the inside and we would not 17:30 have been able to know that unless we open up. Now I 17:35 was there with my stress, but because I am mature, I don't 17:38 want to tell her that I have a problem, and she is mad with me 17:43 but she is bottling it up. We are now able to attack the 17:50 problem because now we understand the problem. 17:52 It's like when you go to the physician and you tell him you 17:57 vomited blood, he doesn't start writing a prescription, right? 18:04 He sends you to the lab, he takes a sample, he is testing. 18:10 And when he gets all the data in then he is ready to prescribe. 18:17 Communication is the diagnostic process before we can find a 18:26 cure. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes she has to talk 18:31 again and I listen and I have to talk again and she listens and 18:34 we have to do that talking and listening, talking and listening 18:38 until we get to the bottom of the problem. When we understand 18:46 it, then we can move to the next step. 18:49 So the next step says, create a specific win/win solution. There 18:57 is a text for that, J.D. Romans 12:10 and it says, 19:03 Be kindly affectionate one to the other, in honor giving 19:10 preference to the other person. A tremendous text! 19:14 Now let's look at this specific win/win solution. Now specific 19:22 means that whatever solution we arrive at, it must say what he 19:29 should do, what Bernard should do, and it should say what Alice 19:33 should do. Win/win says that I should satisfy his needs and he 19:41 should satisfy my needs. So we sit in order to create a win/win 19:49 solution. 19:50 There are a lot of cases where it is a win/lose, 19:54 one is winning and one is losing. 19:56 But we are saying now it must be a win/win. Both 19:58 must get some of what we want. Do you have an example? 20:03 Yes. "So Bernard, how about this? Now I work with computers 20:12 on my job and I know about computers and I could help you 20:17 in the nights or before you go to class with your computer 20:21 assignment. 20:23 If you help me with my assignment my stress for the 20:31 night classes will be gone and I don't need to sit in front of 20:33 that TV anymore, so I will be able to help you with the baby. 20:37 In fact, I will even help you do the dishes. 20:39 Well that's okay too. 20:43 That's a win/win solution. She is getting some of what she 20:49 needs and I am getting some of what I need, some relaxation 20:52 and it is specific in what we are both to do. 20:57 Amen. That makes all the sense in the world. 21:00 All right. And now the last two steps. 21:03 Step #5 says, each say I am sorry. James 5:16 says: 21:19 "Confess your faults one to another. " And who should say 21:23 I'm sorry. Both of us because both of us hurt one another. 21:29 And who should say it first? Anyone. Sometimes we are waiting 21:35 on the other one. She says, you should say it first. No. Anyone 21:41 Well, that's when the Holy Spirit probably should lead one 21:44 of you to say it first if you're in tune with the Lord. 21:48 Usually whoever is more in touch with the Holy Spirit 21:51 will say it first. And after we have done that, 21:52 Okay and the final step says, pray with and pray for 21:56 each other. All right and James 5:16 also says, 22:02 not only to confess as well as to pray one for another that 22:07 you may be healed. Sometimes we think that healing refers 22:13 only to the physical healing, but, of course, there was more 22:18 healing to be done in this scenario. There is the 22:22 emotional part because we hurt each other. So we pray for each 22:27 other so that we can be healed. So we pray for pardon, we 22:32 pray for healing and we pray that God will bless the 22:38 solution, so that we can work it out together very good and 22:43 then we will have a happy relationship once again. 22:47 Well, these are the six steps for solving any problem. 22:52 Before we review them, we want to make our listeners aware that 22:58 this is a mini presentation, that is it is a smaller version 23:05 of the full presentation, which is an hour. We can come to your 23:10 church and do it or your pastor can be taught how to do it. 23:13 Just access our web site www. happyfamilybsi. com. 23:24 Our 800 number is 800-291-3060. 23:32 where you can access more than 50 seminars available for your 23:40 family, for your church and for your community. 23:44 Well this certainly is practical you know, I mean, this just 23:48 makes all the sense in the world and if families would follow 23:52 this particular scenario; this is a progressive process. 23:55 You know, I'm sure that it could make major changes in their 24:00 lives. Of course, the first thing they have to do is get 24:02 pride out of the way, you know, and they have to start some 24:06 place. It just depends on how bad they want it, because there 24:10 is no reason why... I mean this is so practical and just so 24:14 easy that if one of them will take that first step then this 24:18 certainly could work. Why don't we go back through and 24:20 review them again right quick. 24:22 All right. So the first step is 24:24 To speak wisely; know how to speak and follow those four 24:28 things, especially the last one, use "I". Begin with "I", not 24:34 "you" but "I". 24:36 The second step is the other person must learn how to listen, 24:41 not defend yourself, not explain anything at that point; just 24:46 listen actively. When you think you have understood what was 24:53 being said, then you use a restatement. That is, you 24:58 giving back what has been said in different words. 25:01 Well I know about acknowledge. Boy! I hear about that in our 25:05 household. You know, because 25:07 men are good at just grunting 25:09 and Shelley, she will sit and she will wait, and she says 25:13 Yes? Yes? Is there any acknowledgement? and so, you 25:18 know, this is real life here. Now thank goodness, you know, 25:22 because our life is based around the Lord it doesn't get out of 25:25 hand. But, anyway, go ahead. 25:26 The third step is to exchange gracefully. 25:30 So we will switch places and the other person will take his turn 25:34 now to talk while the first person is going to listen. 25:38 You do that with respect and you do that as many times as it 25:43 is necessary. Exchange, talk and listen until we get to the 25:48 bottom of the story and then we can come to the... 25:53 Step #4, which says to create now a specific win/win 25:57 solution. Say what you will do, say what each person will do 26:02 and it must be win/win. Each person must get something. 26:06 So that it is mutually beneficial. 26:08 Mutually beneficial, and that's a big word, mutual, mutual 26:11 agreement, right? And then to say I'm sorry. Both should 26:17 say I'm sorry. 26:18 And then, of course, to pray. 26:19 Ask the Lord to bless what we are doing. Therefore, every 26:27 listener needs to ask himself or herself the questions. 26:30 #1. Am I willing to practice this process? Talking and 26:38 and listening, talking and listening; communication. 26:41 #2. Are we willing to create a win/win solution? To work at it 26:45 until we get a solution. #3. Am I willing to make Christ 26:50 the great problem solver? Because he who could say, peace 26:56 be still to the storm on Galilee can bring peace to 27:00 our homes and to our hearts. 27:03 Why don't we just close this out with a word of prayer, 27:06 if you would, Gordon. 27:07 Sure. Dear God, you are the great problem solver. Teach us 27:12 to talk, teach us to listen, teach us to create win/win 27:15 solutions, teach us to make you Lord of our homes and Lord of 27:20 our hearts. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen, Amen 27:23 I just want to thank both of you on behalf of 3ABN for being 27:27 with us today. This is a wonderful program. This program 27:31 here not only affects us at life, at our home, you know, 27:35 our home life, but just life in general. I can see where there 27:38 is this progressive process to make this work. So I just thank 27:42 you for being here. 27:44 We are happy to be here. It's a delight. Our prayer is that it 27:46 will be used effectively everywhere. 27:48 Amen, Amen. I just want to thank everyone out there being with 27:53 us today at Issues and Answers. God Bless you. We love you. |
Revised 2014-12-17