{"id":24685,"date":"2024-10-30T01:24:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T07:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/?post_type=blog&p=24685"},"modified":"2024-10-29T09:19:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T15:19:38","slug":"4-relationship-lessons-i-learned-this-year","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.boundless.org\/blog\/4-relationship-lessons-i-learned-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Relationship Lessons I Learned This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year, I learn something new about maintaining relationships. Looking back at this year, I learned four lessons from some important events that happened in my life.<\/p>\n

1. Stuff doesn\u2019t matter; relationships do.<\/h4>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve just been in a really bad car crash,\u201d my wife said, shaken up and in pain.<\/p>\n

When she called, I was outside working on a project. I meant to spend a couple hours fixing something, and it was taking all day. I was exhausted and frustrated. Nothing was going according to plan. But I dropped everything.<\/p>\n

Picking up my wife at the accident scene put everything into perspective. Nothing else mattered. All that mattered was that she was OK, she knew how much I cared for her, and we could thank God for watching over her.<\/p>\n

The challenge is that life gets busy and noisy. When I rush from one thing to the next, I don\u2019t notice all the people in between the tasks. If I\u2019m not careful, my life starts revolving around the insignificant details and I lose sight of loving God and loving the people who matter most to me.<\/p>\n

2. It takes two to destroy a relationship.<\/h4>\n

This year, I made the difficult decision to attend a different church. After four months, no one from my previous church family had reached out or talked with me. Initially, I took this personally. I felt like the meaningful relationships I\u2019d worked so hard to build were worthless to those friends.<\/p>\n

But when I took a step back, I realized that I had done nothing to grow or fix those friendships myself. What was I doing to make sure they didn\u2019t decay into nothingness? Why was I waiting for them to make the first move?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t play victim to deteriorating relationships. It takes two people to destroy what was once a thriving relationship. If I\u2019m not working hard to nurture a friendship, I can\u2019t blame the other person for not working twice as hard to make up for my slack.<\/p>\n

3. Listening shows my love.<\/h4>\n

I was having a bad case of the Mondays when I got a text message from my wife: \u201cI need to have a really difficult conversation with you\u2026just so you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

I texted back, but she didn\u2019t reply\u2014for three hours! My imagination wandered, envisioning all the difficult conversations we might need to have. When I did hear from her again, I learned that her phone had died right after she sent the text and she was in the middle of a busy workday. She cautiously asked, \u201cAre you mad?\u201d<\/p>\n

Three hours beforehand I was. But since then, a stillness had come over me. I told myself, \u201cDon\u2019t get mad. Just be ready to listen and love her.\u201d That had to be the Holy Spirit at work.<\/p>\n

Turns out, she was keeping a secret about her business finances, and she had felt convicted after her morning devotions. She was afraid to share her secret, but more than anything, she needed me to listen<\/a> and she needed to hear how much I loved her.<\/p>\n

Being receptive instead of being mad made all the difference in how we resolved the situation. We actually walked away from that tough conversation sharing our love for one another.<\/p>\n

4. Without God, all relationships suffer.<\/h4>\n

Last year was rough. I stopped praying because I was \u201ctoo busy.\u201d Getting ahead at work, finding a house after my landlord sold the home we were renting and so many other distractions took my attention off God.<\/p>\n

When I stop reading my Bible or setting aside time for daily prayer, it\u2019s not just my relationship with God that suffers. I was full of sadness, fear and anger, and I\u2019d lost sight of forgiveness, love and compassion. My negative emotions overflowed into every one of my relationships. I burned a lot of bridges and lost a lot of friends as a result.<\/p>\n

Without hearing and reading about the love of God, I easily lose sight of what love is and what it looks like. And what\u2019s a relationship without love? So I made a commitment to spend more time with God, pursuing a deeper relationship with Him. Time and again, I saw how His abundant love<\/a> overflowed into my relationships.<\/p>\n

The secret to making any relationship work is maintaining a devoted, two-way relationship with God first. Being reminded of how He pursues me, loves me and listens to me changes how I build relationships with the ones I love.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2018 Marc Aker. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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