Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes introduces pastoral counseling using God as an acronym for good, orderly direction. She frames Scripture as an instruction manual for restoring marriages through ten principles: prudence, endurance, respect, forgiveness, earnestness, contentment, compassion, truthfulness, selflessness, and reflection. Future sessions will teach skills for each one.
Hey there everybody, and welcome to this video on restoring your marriage by embracing God or good, orderly direction. This is the beginning of our pastoral counseling education series. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. God stands for good, orderly direction. It's based in principles from scripture, but does not require you to believe in a higher power. Most of you who are watching this do believe in a higher power, and that's great. However, I think it's really important that we recognize that there are tons of principles that are good for promoting love and abundance in the world in a secular world. And so everything that I'm talking about, even though I will cite scripture that support it, you can take the Scripture out and it still makes sense. Think of the Bible as an instruction manual for life with an example of both what to do and what not to do. Let's think of Abraham. Abraham made some mistakes on his way, but God forgave him. And the Israelites regularly fussed and complained and turned against God, but God forgave them. And my point being that the Bible doesn't say this is what you can do. The Bible also says you can screw up and you can be forgiven for it. Scripture references are provided, but good, orderly direction is about learning how to love. That's it. It's not about any religion. How can God help? How can good, orderly direction help? God is love. Marriage is a union that's formed from love. God wants us all to create and unite in the kingdom of God. Not everyone knows how to love or they forget it along the way. So reviewing Scripture, reviewing just good orderly direction as we talk about it, can help you learn how to love. Good, orderly direction reminds us how to love each other and respond with love. It's your instruction manual or roadmap for living a rich and meaningful life. And it means thinking before you act and choosing the best response to help you move toward or maintain that rich and meaningful life. What is this good, orderly direction I keep talking about? Basically, I've distilled it down into these principles. Prudence. It means knowledge and patience. Knowing not only what you do know, but also what you don't know, and being patient and less impulsive in your responding. How much would that improve your relationships if you just were more prudent? Endurance of hardships. Respect for yourself as well as other people. Forgiveness of yourself as and others. Earnestness in all that you do, which means keeping your word and doing your best. That's all. Contentment with what is instead of what could be and compassion for yourself and others. Truthfulness with self and other and selflessness. And as I define it here, that means stopping thinking that you are the center of the universe, recognizing that other people got you here and the contributions they made, even if it was just giving birth to you. But other people, every person that you've interacted with throughout your life has played a part in helping you, helping to create who you are. Selflessness means stepping back and recognizing the contribution of others and also recognizing, again, as I said, sometimes it ain't all about you. Reflection. Think about when things were going well in your relationship. Were you prudent, more thoughtful, less impulsive? Were you willing to endure challenges together? A lot of people get into relationships, and in the beginning they are stuck like glue, and they're willing to endure challenges. And then gradually that glue gets weak. So endurance is really important. Are you forgiving of yourself and your partner for making bad choices? Humans are lovable. You are lovable. Your partner is lovable. Your behaviors may not so much be. And it's important to recognize the difference between loving the person and loving the behavior. Forgiving yourself and others is so important. A lot of relationships end up in counseling because each person has this list longer than Santa's list of done me wrongs and resentments and grievances and slights and this and that that they've been holding to for three, four, 30 years. You can also be unforgiving of yourself, which can create barriers in relationships. But we'll get to that when we get to that particular video. Have you been earnest in all that you've done? Have you been willing to keep your word and do your very best? Or did you say, okay, you know, I'll do the dishes, and then you just did the bare minimum, or you rinsed them off and left them in the sink to be washed tomorrow or something? That's not being earnest. Earnestness means giving a hundred percent to whatever you're doing and keeping your word. Have you been content and compassionate in the moment, recognizing, hey, the grass is always greener, as they say? Could things be better? Maybe. However, it's important to recognize what good I have right now. Yeah, some things may be crappy, but it's important to look at the whole picture, the whole pie, not just the pieces of the pie that are rotten or screwed up in some way? Have you been truthful with yourself and your partner? And this means not only about things that you did or didn't do, but also about your feelings, your wants, your needs? Have you been authentic and have you been selfless, willing to consider other people's point of view. Oh, wow. Willing to give credit where credit is due and willing to show appreciation. All of those things perfects our ability to love, and it helps us heal our relationships. In the coming sessions, we will explore the skills and tools involved in each of those principles. That's kind of where all the psychology stuff comes in. So I hope to see you in the future videos.
