One Toxic Pattern Quietly Destroying Relationships And Marriages by Rev. Dr. Sam Oye: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

You Cannot Do It Alone

You cannot accomplish so much in life without qualitative relationships. You can't. You need people. If it's going to be big, if it's going to be great, if it's going to be impactful — something that God gave you as a vision to carry out — you can't get it done all alone by yourself.

Even God, who wanted to extend his influence on the earth, needed Adam on earth. David could not establish the kingdom that was prophesied over his life without mighty men. Every time God wants to carry out a mission, God must always recruit a man. And the man cannot carry the mission out alone by himself — he will also recruit other men, just as he was recruited.

In order to get things done through men, you must learn to relate well with men. No matter how gifted you are, no matter how talented you are, no matter how anointed you are, poor relationship skills will minimize your impact and your influence upon the earth.

What Is Escalation?

The negative pattern that destroys relationships — we call it escalation. What is escalation? It is the intensification of conflict.

In every relationship, we have what is called bid, response, and results. Every relationship is governed by these three things. A bid is an offer. In a relationship, when I wake up in the morning and say "How are you?" — that is a bid. Your response will either strengthen our relationship, which is a result, or your response will begin to create a problem in the relationship.

When I buy you a gift on my way back from work, it's not just a gift. It's a bid. It's my way of offering you my love, my affection. Your response matters. It will either build a bond, or it will break or weaken the bond between you and I.

In relationship, in marriage, over the years of your life, there will be thousands of micro-bids. Every day in relationship, we are constantly making bids, offering bids. And responses will determine whether we will have healthy or unhealthy relationships.

It matters how you respond. In relationship, responses matter because the next reaction, the next response, is predicated on your response. In science, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. So when a bad bid is offered — for instance, I came in from work upset, and you offered me a great bid: "Welcome back home." But my response was not welcoming. My response was bad.

Now, this is where you, who made the initial bid, need to be very careful. You don't want to allow my response or my reaction to generate a negative reaction from you. You don't want to practice escalation. You want to de-escalate. You don't want to intensify the reaction. You don't want to intensify the situation, because if my response is dismissive, and you react, my response can become tougher. And if you don't know how to de-escalate, your response can also lead to a worse scenario.

What Drives Escalation

• Ignorance — Ignorance drives escalation. Things get escalated because we lack emotional intelligence. Where there is emotional intelligence and de-escalation skills, things will be better.
• The desire to dominate — When you have an intentional desire to dominate conversation, dominate your partner, win the argument — that is not wisdom. Subduing your partner doesn't make you a champion. On the contrary, it makes you what we call an abuser, because you were not created to subdue your partner. So you are winning on the wrong turf. You are a loser.

Signs That Escalation Has Infested Your Relationship

• You always raise your voices at each other. Somebody is driving escalation in that relationship.
• When there is a heated argument building up, you always refuse to pause, you refuse to regulate yourself, and you will not accept any attempt for de-escalation. You want to tear down the entire place. You want to make your final statement. It's a proof that you are functioning from the place of escalation.
• If I can't trust your sense of control — if you can't control your emotions, if you can't control your words — you now expect me to trust you with substance, with materials, with treasures? No. You are somebody that can explode. You are unpredictable. You don't know that you are damaging your prospect by engaging in escalation.

Conflict always requires fuel to continue. Reaction is the wood that keeps the fire burning.

Wisdom is what restrains you from reacting. Rather, you respond intelligently. The proof of maturity is determined by your ability to delay reaction and your ability to delay wrong interpretation. Because once your interpretation is wrong, your actions and reactions will be wrong.

Three Distinct Destroyers

• Invalidation silences the heart.
• Misinterpretation distorts the message.
• Escalation destroys the environment.