"If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse"
Who likes being woken up in the morning before you are ready? If you are one of those odd morning people....I hate you and you ruin life for the rest of us.....For the rest of us normal people, it doesn't really matter why we are being woken up, it is terrible.
This fictional man blessing his neighbor is doing it in the most obnoxious way possible....LOUDLY! Maybe he wants to say nice things about his friend. But in my head I envision him standing outside at 5 in the morning shouting by the bedroom window wonderful and encouraging things. And with each syllable his neighbor(and probably his wife) are disliking him more and more.
Hopefully no one reading this is shouting encouragement in their friends windows before the sun comes up. You know what we do though? We do nice things, or, try to "bless" people at inappropriate times.
Perhaps you have something true and important that someone needs to know, but have you thought about the timing of your words/actions. Sometimes instead of just listening to people and walking through something with them we want to "preach at them". You can ask people who know me well(my wife) I tend to fall into that camp a bit more than I should.
And here is the thing. What you or I may be saying at that particular moment is likely correct. It is just incorrectly timed.
We have to put as much effort into the how and when of our "interaction" with people as we put into the truth of what we are going to actually be saying. When we are oblivious and callous towards the reality of their situation, at THAT moment, our thoughtful blessing will be taken as a curse.
Sometimes waiting to "help" is as important as the help itself.
How about you? What blessing do you want to speak to someone that you should probably just swallow and hold onto until the right time?
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