Grand gestures to make someone feel like the relationship is improving does very little to resolve bad relationships. The most effective healing for any relationship is a growing and continual change in the way a toxic person relates to others.
If anyone does not understand this it would be a good idea to go to God and ask to understand. Relationship cannot be resolved or grow in goodness until respect and honor is given as a normal course.
If there are wonderful flowers one day after a terrible incident, it will do nothing if the toxic person continues to act in terrible ways as a normal course off and on.
When we see a change in the way someone treats us then we have no need for flowers, the change is what is desired.
There is a saying, "your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you are saying." The same might be true that the flowers when given are in place of decent respect on a regular basis. Another way to say this might be "your continual actions outweigh this one time expression to impress me or others.
Whenever "things" replace attitudes toward someone we know the gesture is not authentic. Gifts only mean something when respect and honor has been shown all along.
If we feel badly how we have treated someone over a number of years it is better to change our behavior permanently than to bring flowers every time we want to pretend there is respect. Only God can change a heart permanently. All attempts to change ourselves will eventually disappear as the flesh is weak to keep up the hard work of pretending. When God changes a heart it is real, permanent and seen by all.
God desires our love which leads to obedience. In human relationships people desire respect and honor far more than gifts given to impress or manipulate others.
1 Samuel 15:32 "22 But Samuel declared: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of rams."
1 Samuel 15:23
"23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
When we bring a gift to someone we have treated shamefully continually over a lifetime, the gift is a sort of stench in our nostrils because there has been no regret over the treatment. The gifts are manipulation and worth nothing.
1 Samuel 15:24
"24 Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice."
Hosea 6:6
"6 “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me."
John 12:43 "43 For they loved praise from men more than praise from God. 44 Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in Me does not believe in Me alone, but in the One who sent Me.…"
Matthew 6:1–34
"6 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."
Matthew 15:7-9 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8 ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’”…"
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