Relationships: Those to Let Be and Those to Embrace

A deeper level of being other-centered—of forgetting or minimizing self—is the ability to not take everything personal.

We are used to automatically connecting the taking of things personally with being offended.

But there’s another, different, level: that of always attributing all outcomes and people’s reactions and behaviors to ourselves.

What if, instead, we were able to perceive other people’s actions as sincerely their problem? (Again, making sure we are not simply self-centeredly blaming and redirecting. We are assuming here that we’ve already honestly examined ourselves).

How much of life is invested in:

Wondering what we may have done wrong (mind-reading)?

Improving or strengthening relationships that simply are not ever going to improve or strengthen, no matter what we do or don’t do?

Constantly jumping through ever-changing hoops to bring about a new reaction from someone or instill a new attitude in them?

Now, I’m talking here about situations in which we take someone’s response (or lack thereof) to us, and instead of getting offended by it, we become frustrated, sad or feel misunderstood. We do not blame their interaction or lack thereof on them; we redirect that blame upon ourselves.

What follows then is attempts on our part at reconciliation:

We make every effort to show up at family gatherings.

We think, and re-think, how we can be when we are in this person’s presence, so as never to offend.

We live in a world that coddles everyone else because, in our self-centeredness, we have convinced ourselves that the lack of relationship or less-than-ideal relationship is entirely our fault.

This is another form of self-centeredness—thinking that we are the root and reason for how everything transpires around us.

True other-centeredness, however, does not only mean to have compassion for, take interest in, help and listen to others.

True other-centeredness also does not play the martyr:

So when we attempt to love other people and they do not respond in kind...

When we attempt to turn over a new leaf in a relationship—allowing bygones to be bygones—and others cannot or will not do the same...

Then true other-centeredness holds the other person accountable for their choice.

True other-centeredness acknowledges our desires and actual attempts for a better situation, and the other person’s disinterest.

True other-centeredness objectively looks at the facts, i.e. faces reality.

I have relationships with people that haven’t changed in 50 years. And throughout the decades, my striving to make those relationships closer or stronger have come to naught.

Since these relationships haven’t, and obviously aren’t, going to change based on my efforts, the only thing remaining then to change is how I choose to go forward:

First, to see that I have indeed done everything to elicit a positive transformation in a relationship...

And second, my attitude when no transformation results. And that attitude is this: stop focusing on the few people who do not want to “go there” with me and instead commit fully to those who do and who, in fact, already are.

The squeaky wheel really will get all of our oil if we let it.

While we may have many excellent friendships and connections with people, why is it that we allow the handful of people in our life who simply aren’t invested in progressing or engaging with us to be the fly in our ointment?

Often it is because they are biologically connected to us. But as the saying goes, “You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.” 

As Christians, we need to embrace and accept that other Christians are our real family.

Yesterday I had the completion of an epiphany that has been coming to me in bits and pieces over the past six months.

After a year’s long--and futile--deep-dive into one-on-one relationship tweaking with certain individuals, I received in the mail an exceedingly thoughtful birthday gift sent from dear friends overseas, and, later in the evening, a long, warm and genuine email from a Christian sister in Chicago.

It dawned on me that while I have been investing so deeply in dead-end relationships, I was minimizing, or taking for granted and under-appreciating, the lovingly reciprocated and respectfully-established relationships that already do exist.

Yesterday, it became clear that my approach to stagnant or barely-there “relationships” has been self-centered in that I have been allocating time, energy, effort and mental anguish to people who simply do not want interaction with me.

They may not even be mean-spirited in this, but they simply are absolutely content with things as they are. They don’t want closeness. They don’t want friendship. They don’t’ want to meet for coffee once a month. They have no ambition to make the relationship with me anything other than what it is.

That is a harsh reality.

But we have to understand how our insistence upon something changing that is never going to change only hurts the joy and interaction we experience with those people who already are intentionally in our lives and who sincerely desire to be.

We must learn, in other-centeredness, to give up our unrealistic and maybe even selfish desires for other people, and instead turn to those who, voluntarily and of their own free will, do love us in word and deed.

This is not to say we form a bad attitude or cold shoulder towards others. That would only constitute the sin of offense that is to have been gotten over already. We simply go forward, allowing others to live as they wish to live—without our cajoling or being a pest. We do the healthy thing of showing up when we must and being there when we must, without any expectations.

Thus, we free ourselves of these often deeply ingrained “shoulds” of connection, and free the other person from them as well.

The harsh reality is lessened once we empathetically understand that this is what these individuals want.

Certainly we are always there if people change their mind. But in the meantime, I have decided to stop beating myself up for past infractions that I am not allowed to reconcile and for current shortcomings that others may feel are insurmountable to being in a relationship with me.

In that confidence, I go forward in the mutual affection shared with those who do want kinship with me and who are already living it out.

These are the relationships that are “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” (Luke 6:38) because both parties desire it; both parties are blessed in it and both parties know it.

I am humbled and a bit ashamed to think how little I revered the wonderful friends and Christian family I have because I was so focused on other relationships that I thought I could fix.

It is to these loving souls I now turn in full attention and affiliation, with the prayer that our “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight” (Philippians 1:9), thanking God every time I remember you (Philippians 1:3).

Copyright Barb Harwood

“A friend loves at all times,

And a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17

“There is an appointed time for everything.

And there is a time for every event under heaven—” Ecclesiastes 3:1

“A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

A time to search and a time to give up as lost;

A time to keep and a time to throw away

A time to tear apart and a time to sew together.” Ecclesiastes 3:5b-7a

“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” Amos 3:3

Our Neuroses Don't Make Us Special

Many people, including myself, currently or at one time have operated out of the thinking that our mental faults or attributes somehow make us special: i.e. unaccountable and forgivable for our attitudes and actions.

Thankfully, I consider myself in the category of “who at one time” did this. Humorously, it could be granted that in this I am perhaps deluding myself! It is the risk one takes when one declares any level of victory over a personal dysfunction.

As it is, I do believe myself free of the moniker “special” for past addictions and past and current personality disorders.

And I have a Christian friend to thank for that.

It was to this friend, several years ago, that I was reciting the seriousness of and damage done by my past drinking. It wasn’t the first time the poor woman had to hear this.

In response, she said something I wish I had written down and kept, not only because it stunned my thinking, but because it was a perfect demonstration of Ephesians 4:15 which teaches that we are to speak the truth in love so that “we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ.”

My friend said something to the effect of, 

“Barb, your struggle with alcohol isn’t any greater of a struggle than anyone else has experienced.”

Wow.

I mean, to most people that would be a slap in the face—a secular counselor’s first rule of what not to do when “helping” someone.

But this woman—and it’s important to note that she and I had an established friendship—spoke in a firm but loving tone and manner—at a time when I desperately needed to hear it—Gospel Truth.

Her words were what the Bible itself actually teaches:

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

I felt the golden nugget of conviction at her words.

Yes, I had overcome an addiction through the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

But the fact that I had struggled, along with all of the reasons behind it, had begun to control and infect me and thus, my life, relationships and attitudes.

I was indulging in an interpretation of my struggle as being singular in importance and effect.

In addition, I was holding myself accountable to a past accomplishment only, ignorant of the work that remained to be done on underlying and newly emerging issues.

In this, I had anointed myself a special case: a Joan of Arc in the successful battle with egregious transgression, and now a martyr to that very victory.

This was my high-minded condition when my friend spoke her prophetic words and brought me needfully low.

It’s moments like these for which relationships, I believe, were made.

Yes, we can commiserate, listen to and comfort one another. All are necessary.

But a real relationship gains strength and is tested by loving honesty.

It is this honesty from a sister in Christ that opened me up to the Truth of Christ about myself and away from my own, and the world’s, estimation that I was justified to wear my past drinking on my sleeve and disavow myself of any further progress.

I could no longer idly blame the drinking, and the reasons for it, for every dysfunction in my personality and behavior. Nor could I continue to simply ride triumph’s coattails.

Only when my friend had the guts to point out that, um, I wasn’t really special, in fact, not special at all in what I had been through and overcome, was I enabled to measure myself as the sinner that I am, right along with everyone else.

Additionally, as a repentant Christian, I have been redeemed from all sin, also right along with every other Christian. Any victory in Christ is equal to others' victory in Christ.

Romans 3:23 doesn’t mince words when it says,

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

So we can’t claim uniqueness in that.

But Romans 3:22a, appearing just before the above verse, is also clear:

“...righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe...” 

So we are not to stymie our maturity by wallowing in or clinging pridefully to past unrighteousness or the overcoming of it.

Instead, we proceed down the avenue of 2 Corinthians 5:17:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.”

In this, I—along with any sense of being special in the struggle or the overcoming—am healthily humbled.

copyright Barb Harwood

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” Acts 20:24

“Not that I have already attained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things...” Philippians 3:12-15a

A Bad Tree Bears Bad Fruit and A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit

I’ve often asked the question, 

“How can I help me if I am the problem?”

It follows that, 

“How can I help others if I am the problem?”

Biblically, this is found in Matthew 7:15-16b:

“Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”

(And remember, Scripture teaches us that only God is good and the author of all good: Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19; James 1:17).

What, then, is a good tree but the tree that is rooted in Christ? And what is a bad tree but the tree that isn’t.

I ended yesterday’s post with a distinction: to believe Christ, not in Him. 

Many, many, people say they believe IN Christ, or if not in Christ, then in a generic god (that they may even interpret as Biblical).

James 2:19 says,

“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

And Romans 1:21-22, and 1:25:

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

Jesus has a word for those who co-opt Christ for social justice or charitable acts, or merely verbalize a rote belief in him:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’’ (Matthew 7:21-23).

What is the “will of my Father who is in heaven?”

“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:40).

This verse uses the terminology “believes in him.” But as the Matthew 7 verse imparts, there is more to believing in Christ than simply belief in Christ. It requires knowing Christ in personal intimacy, within the truth of the entire Gospel of Good News, which Christ came to deliver individually to each and every one of us.

How does this all tie in with yesterday’s Luke 12:48 verse?

We established in that post that God has already given us the Kingdom.

We see that the Bible makes it clear that belief in Christ is not to be undertaken lightly, that much will be required and demanded of us who have been given, and who have received, the Kingdom--been given and received Christ Himself. That is the “much” that we have been given: God in Christ and His Holy Spirit.

So when we choose to seek and enter the Kingdom, saved by Christ alone, we no longer perceive, respond and act in the old earthly way. What is demanded and asked of us, per the Luke 12 verse, is to grow more and more like Christ. 

That means that, as our love for the Lord our God increases with all of our heart, minds, bodies, strength, soul and spirit, we are driven to please Him. And we do it freely, in the joy and life that He Himself stated He came to fill up in us (John 10:10 and 15:11).

So, no longer can we keep ourselves in charge.

No longer can we take offense when Jesus says that people took offense at Him first.

No longer can we self-righteously judge others when Jesus says that God will judge everyone and He will avenge—our job is merely to focus on the log in our own eye.

The call of God in Christ Jesus, the "much" that is required of us, is to (and Scripture provides many more teachings on How to live as Christ) do the following:

“...grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18a).

"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:30-32).

Participate in the divine nature by adding to our faith:

“goodness; and goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love” (2 Peter 1:5b-7).

And listed as the most important by Jesus Himself, because it is the way to the good tree that bears good fruit:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

And if we say we love Him, then it is required of us to love Him, and thus, to obey Him:

“If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15).

“Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (John 14:24).

We cannot “follow” some vague god of denominational devising that has been disembodied from the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We cannot conjure up a good “god,” or even a good self, from our fallen, sinful inner nature and hope to grow good fruit. These Godless acts will always be tainted with selfish motivation and pride, which is why God calls these sorts of personal deeds “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

Instead,

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7)

The difference between a life of belief “in” and a life that believes Christ and His Gospel is the difference between whether we will be a tree that bears good fruit or a tree that bears bad fruit in the sight of God.

Once we believe Christ and His Gospel, we are ready to examine and live out the “much” that is “demanded” of us.

copyright Barb Harwood