Posts Tagged ‘Relationships’

Why I Love Weddings

July 21st, 2010
"Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is...

Image by bdentzy via Flickr

I have to tell you, I think weddings totally rock!  There’s such excitement and anticipation.  There are all kinds of people showing up and sharing their lives – sometimes even family and friends from other countries.  It’s just a powerful thing.

A few days ago I was at a wedding.  Actually, to be more specific, I was in a wedding.  It was a blessed event and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Weddings Remind Me

Weddings remind me of things.  They remind me of the value of marriage.  They remind me of the vows I took with my wife.  They remind me that there’s something special about marriage – that it’s ordained by God and is one of the ways that the Holy Spirit forms us into the image of Jesus.

Weddings speak to me of how humanity was created in the image of God.  Of how God created us for relationship.  Of how God commanded dominion of the earth.  Weddings are a cool thing!

But there is always one part of the wedding that just totally messes me up.

» Read more: Why I Love Weddings

How Well do You Maintain Relationships?

February 1st, 2010
Wedding
Image via Wikipedia

I don’t do a great job of maintaining relationships. I can talk a good game but in the end I do a much better job of maintaining distractions than I do in actually sharing my life with people. In fact, if I don’t see you on a regular basis there’s a good chance I won’t really do a good job of keeping up with you.

Most of my relationships are geographic

I seem to do the best job of maintaining relationships with those I see regularly. This works well with my wife, my colleagues at work, and my fellow parishioners. But it doesn’t work nearly as well with people who aren’t in my regular weekly routine. Because of that, I tend to focus on my relationships in this order:

  1. God
  2. My amazing wife
  3. Friends and colleagues I see regularly
  4. My parents
  5. Everybody else

The problem with that is that far too many of my very close friends are ending up in the “Everybody else” category.

This is to my detriment because I’ve done a very poor job of keeping up with some close friends of mine. Those where we used to interact regularly but aren’t in my weekly circle any more. Some of them have been friends for years and have poured wisdom, spiritual insight, and love into my life. In fact one was the closest of my friends for several years and lives only a few miles away, yet we now have trouble even scheduling time to hang out. But it gets worse.

» Read more: How Well do You Maintain Relationships?

You Can’t Have Fondue on Facebook

December 17th, 2009
Fondue, Choucroute, Fromage, etc.

How is your online social life?

Seriously, how are you doing? What are you doing?

Do you have a lot of friends? Do you invest a lot of time building relationships that mean something? Do you invest in relationships with people you actually know? Are you looking for followers or friendships? Are you hiding in the anonymity of being just another name on somebody’s friend list? Do you judge what kind of friend you are by the number of people who follow you on Twitter?

Electronic social media is a wonderful thing – or at least it can be. It can help us reconnect with old friends and classmates. It can make the miles between us seem fewer. We can feel less separate.

Social media is good for

» Read more: You Can’t Have Fondue on Facebook

Love for All You’re Worth

December 10th, 2009
The end of the road
Image by TimOve via Flickr

I had a striking revelation a couple of days ago: if I love more people, I will experience more pain.

I’ll have my heart broken more often. I’ll experience more disappointment and have to work through more misunderstandings. I’ll attend more funerals and walk with more friends through difficult times.

Love is Hard

To be blunt, love isn’t easy. It asks us to do things that are hard. Things like putting others first or swallowing our pride. We have to work hard to build and maintain relationships. In fact, often it’s difficult even to know how to love and it can be tempting to love less, to love fewer.

Even though it’s tempting to live an insulated life of numbness, don’t do it. Love as many people as deeply and fully as you can. Invest your life in the lives of others. Have those difficult conversations. Walk with people through their pain. Work through misunderstandings and disappointments.

Why should I love more?

Love fully because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). In fact, God so loved us that he demonstrated his love for us by sending his son to reconcile us to him (John 3:16-18) while we were still his enemies (Romans 5:10).

Love fully because joy in love is disproportionate to pain. Because though the world is marred by sin, there is still more beauty than non-beauty. Love fully because to do anything else is to fail to live. And as followers of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to life!

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Community – You, Me, and We

August 24th, 2009
A group of youth interacting
Image via Wikipedia

A couple of days ago I wrote that Community is a Gift from God. I’d like to spend just a little time working on a definition of “community.” At least community as I understand it.

The word “community” can be used to describe a number of things – loosely defined as “a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment”. This could describe nearly anything from a bacterial culture to a city to the entirety of the earth’s population – human, animal, and plant.

I’d like to be a little more specific – I’ll be working with a community of people. I’d like to look at what we might consider some of the generic elements of communities of people. » Read more: Community – You, Me, and We

Why Should Spouses be Good to Each Other?

August 8th, 2009
Father and Daughter at the Zoo
Image by newagecrap via Flickr

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a right (Biblical) relationship between a husband and wife. How submission and surrender can be freeing and can help the “two become one flesh” (Mark 10:8). I trust that you went to listen to Pastor Barbie’s sermon, where she laid out a beautiful picture of how this can look. A picture filled with grace and freedom, not condemnation and legalism.

So now the question follows: Why?

Why should a wife an wife pursue a right relationship with each other? What’s the point? Here are five reasons, just off the top of my head. Perhaps you have some more – share those in the comments section below.

  1. It’s in the Bible (Ephesians 5:21-33) – For a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, this alone should be a good reason.
  2. A right relationship between husband and wife improves their marriage.
  3. When things are right at home, we are free to minister to others.
  4. The relationship between a husband and a wife reflect on the nature of God (refer again to Ephesians 5:21-33).
  5. We are better role models for our children – when we model a good relationship, we give our children a chance to have a marriage relationship that is as good as (or better than) our own.

Perhaps you know of some reasons as well. Perhaps you have a story of how your parents’ relationship has affected your life. You should share those in the comments section below. I’d love to hear your stories.

I’ll close with the chorus from “Daughters” by John Mayer. Fathers and mothers, be good to your daughters (and sons). Treat them well. Raise them well. And model a Biblical marriage relationship.

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

John Mayer “Daughters”
Heavier Things Sony 2003

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Spouses Be Good to Each Other

August 7th, 2009
sweet embrace

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul tells us that wives should “submit to their own husbands.” This, however, is not a license to subjugate women to the whims of men. In fact, teaching this is a misuse of the word of God and requires that we ignore the context of this passage.

At the risk of being accused of taking scripture out of context, I’m only including a small portion of this passage. You can however, view the section here, to see whether I’m looking at all of it.

Ephesians 5:22-23
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

Ephesians 5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Here’s the thing, though. While I’ve known for some time that this prescription for marriage relationship was much more beautiful than a man saying “do this,” I’ve never had a good understanding of how to explain it.

Enter Pastor Barbie Loflin (Twitter, Facebook, Blogger). She presented the most beautiful picture of submission and surrender in the context of a marriage that I have ever heard. Of the holy embrace of husband and wife as they work out their relationship, endeavoring to become one flesh.

There’s no way I can do her message justice. You should check out the whole thing here.

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