Relationships - Part III
We are not just people in need of seeking Godly wisdom; we are also people in need of rescue—and the thing that we need to be rescued from is ourselves. Our problem is selfishness of heart that causes us to care more about what we want, more than what may be good for us.
The laws, principles, and perspectives of Scripture provide the best standards ever towards which our relationships should strive - some of them are listed at the bottom of this page. They can point out and reveal our wrongs and failures, but they have no capacity whatsoever to deliver us from them. For that, we need the daily grace and mercy that only an intimate relationship with Jesus can give us. In that intimate relationship, we can learn, understand and receive healing for the complexities of our inner world, and begin to confidently navigate our relationships, with a renewed mindset.
We are all treasure hunters. We all live to gain, maintain, keep, and enjoy things that are valuable to us. Our behavior in any given situation of life is our attempt to possess what is valuable and important to us out of that situation. There are things in our life that we have assigned importance to, and once we have, we are no longer willing to live without them - these principles are laid out in Matthew 6:19–33 as we read above. Everyone does it.
We live to possess and experience the things that we have set our hearts on. We are always living for some kind of treasure.
We are also investors, looking for a return on our investments, particularly regarding our relationships Every treasure you set your heart on and actively seek will give you some kind of return. For instance, being argumentative is an investment in the treasure of being right, and from it you will get some kind of relational return. If it is more valuable to have control than it is for your friend or spouse to feel heard, loved and understood, then you will live with the return of that in the quality of your relationship.
Likewise, if you have placed value on pleasing your man regardless of his behavior or the cost to yourself, you will experience the return on that investment. You will get what you accept.
If you are clinging to someone, it is totally different than loving them, it is the crying out of a desperate need - maybe it is a crying out for desperately needing to simply be in a relationship. It is intensely selfish. It is taking, not giving. Some of us use relationships as crutches, becoming dependent.
Sometimes we can place so much weight on people that it stresses even a healthy relationship and causes it to crack. And then we don't understand why the relationship didn't last.
Investment is inescapable; we do it everyday, and we will reap a return on the investments we have made. Ask yourself:
What are the things that are most valuable to me in this season of my life? Do those things allow for sharing my life with someone else? Am I willing to compromise any of those things?
What are the things I work to experience everyday and am unwilling to live without?
How is the return on those investments shaping my relationships?
Wisdom from Scripture:
Proverbs 4:23
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. (NLT)
1 Corinthians 6:18
Run from sexual sin. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. (NLT)
1 Corinthians 15:33
Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals." (ESV)
2 Corinthians 6:14–15
Don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? (NLT)