Relationship tips (1)

Realistic announcement before we begin: not every relationship is healthy. (If physical, mental, emotional or even spiritual abuse threatens our safety, let's get out. Stay safe, ok?) In situations when a relationship can be fixed, though, it can end be a source of shared joy and strength. So for the next few days, let's look at injecting some health into relationships, within family or friendship.

Today's tip for healthy relationships: get God's perspective of sin, ours and theirs. Maybe this is obvious. Maybe we agree in theory, but how's it working out in practice? Maybe we're trying our best, but they're being selfish, and never listening. Maybe they're deliberately being as sinful and difficult as possible, and we're just a victim. Perspective shift: Are we giving them a hard time, out loud or with silent treatments, to make them see what a terrible person they are? From God's perspective, sin is sin. Ours and theirs. All of the above are harmful to relationships.

Rather than ranking sins, let's see what Jesus taught: 'How can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye' (Matthew 7:4-5 TLB). We'll be amazed at how God will start to work with their problem when we get honest and deal with ours.



So what now? Open Matthew 7:4-5. Spend time praying through a tough relationship situation with it in front of you. What personal 'planks' do you need to deal with?





— SCRIPTURE —

'What God has joined together, let not man separate.' Mark 10:9 NKJV
— SOULFOOD —

1 Cor 12-14, Matt 2:13-23, Ps 139:13-24, Pro 31:28-29