Growing in Relationships

If you think your family has problems, consider the marriage mayhem created when 76-year-old Bill Baker of London wed Edna Harvey.

She happened to be his granddaughter’s husband’s mother. That’s where the confusion began, according to Baker’s granddaughter, Lynn.

“My mother-in-law is now my step-grandmother. My grandfather is now my stepfather-in-law. My mom is my sister-in-law and my brother is my nephew. But even crazier is that I’m now married to my uncle and my own children are my cousins.”

This bizarre episode sounds like the old country song, “I’m My Own Grandpa.” But in comical fashion it’s a reminder that relationships can be complicated. Difficult. Challenging. Confusing. And sometimes messy.

Our families, communities, churches, and professions all point to the fact that life is about relationships. It’s really not about our accomplishments, possessions, position or pursuit of pleasure. It’s about relationships.

The late Dee Bowman authored a book with a title that succinctly echoes this sentiment–”It’s All About the People.” However, our relationships with others must be nourished and nurtured. To experience personal and spiritual growth is to cultivate, develop, and enhance our relationships.

Think about how much of the Bible involves relationships and issues exhortations regarding how we interact and treat others.

The 59 “one another” commands are all about our relationships in the Body of Christ.

Much in written about family relationships in Proverbs as well as in Paul’s famous treatise in Ephesians 5:23-6:4. From these texts we are reminded of the importance of love, honor, understanding, and mutual respect in our homes.

The great love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 offers 15 specific qualities and characteristics we ought to exhibit in all relationships. Among these are patience, kindness, and good manners.

Paul’s letters to the young preachers Timothy and Titus are filled with admonitions regarding our attitude as we minister to others. “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness” 2 Tim. 2:24).

Of course, “The Golden Rule” from Jesus’ Mountain Message has become known universally as the gold standard of getting along with other people. “Treat others the way you want to be treated” (Matt. 7:12).

In application of these principles, an unknown author offers what he calls “The 10 Commandments of Human Relations.”

1. Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.

2. Smile at people. It takes seventy-two muscles to frown, only fourteen to smile.

3. Call people by name. Music to anyone’s ears is the sound of his/her own name.

4. Be friendly and helpful.

5. Be cordial. Speak and act as if everything you do is genuinely a pleasure, and if it isn’t, learn to make it so.

6. Be genuinely interested in people. You can like almost everybody if you try.

7. Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.

8. Be considerate with the feelings of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy: yours, the other fellow’s, and the right one.

9. Be alert to serve. What counts most in life is what we do for others.

10. Add to this a good sense of humor, a big dose of patience, and a dash of humility, and you will be rewarded manifold through life.

Growing in our relationships is not theoretical, but practical. Not abstract, but concrete.

Building mutually satisfying and long lasting relationships calls for commitment. Requires effort. Demands self-sacrifice. And is formed and forged in respect, consideration, and “the milk of human kindness.”

Finally, this thought as paraphrased from Oscar Wilde. Ultimately the bond of all relationships, whether in the family, the church, or our friends socially is conversation and communication.

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman