It is relationships, the way we handle them, specifically and generally and the decisions we make in their respect that make us or break us.
I once read the report of a study done on some top happy male and female billionaires (obviously there are also top unhappy ones) around the world. When asked what would be the one most important factor that had contributed to what they had become and their financial success, the answer was their marriages.
Money and success, vital as they may be, make no one truly happy in the end. Hardly does anyone worry about his wealth or estates on his deathbed. What rather consumes the mind at such moments is the way they lived their lives and how they related to people through their lifetime. Once again, the successful life is more about what you are becoming than what you are achieving.
No matter the relationships one may be dealing with, there are essentials for relationship building: Time-together, Commitment, Good Communication, Kindness, Patience, Giving, Loyalty, Love and Respect. Certainly, not every relationship is the same and the differences could determine to what extent any of these essentials may be invested in one relationship or the other.
Without mutual respect, your relationships are headed nowhere. Mutual love and respect make kindness, patience and a giving-heart possible. Communication is always at its best when there is a foundation of love and respect.
With the right foundation, even disagreements can become building blocks for stronger relationships. You cannot remove or avoid disagreements from relationships. This is because everyone is different and has a unique perspective on life. If handled wisely, disagreements spice our relationships with the bittersweet condiments that cleanse the bowels of the soul.
Different does not mean inferior or superior. It simply means different! Besides, when it comes to people who truly have mutual love and respect, ‘difference’ does not mean ‘poles apart!’ It is a bigot who believes that he is superior to others because they are different from him.
Naturally, you see things differently from others and vice-versa. This is so evident, particularly in marital relationships. If you are married, you do not need to wonder why your spouse always sees things differently from you. The fact is you cannot see all sides of all things. Moreover, the side you do not see is what often becomes your ‘saving grace’ when you finally understand it.
Consequently, you need others to help you see those areas that you do not perceive. Your different perspectives should add colour to your lives and break the boredom of monochrome. Someone said, if you are married to someone different from you, you are most likely in the right relationship.
Maturity of love and respect is the ability to see that a person who loves me is not opposing me or is against my person, but is simply seeing issues from a different perspective.
Talking about love in marriage, I have learnt that women spell love T-L-C (Tender Loving Care) and men spell love R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Talk about seeing things differently! It is the same thing from a different point of view.
If you are the head of a family, you have to choose between being the Lord of the Manor or the Cultivator of a precious Flower Garden. You have the choice of either providing leadership or enforcing rulership.
If our egos do not get in the way, but we humble ourselves, we will get to know what is right for creating the right atmosphere for building our relationships instead of destroying them and ending up dying lonely.
Kindness is being gracious in your relationship with others. It involves empathy, thoughtfulness, or consideration, another way to put it is, ‘putting yourself in other’s shoes.’ If you were in the other person’s position, would you want to be spoken to in the manner you are about to speak to them? Would you, in all sincerity, want to be treated in the way you are about to treat them?
Kindness is love in action that brings grace to all we do and say to and about others. That is why gossiping, backbiting and every form of unkind speech is selfishness in action. You are simply thinking of yourself and not the other person. Besides the opposite of love is selfishness.
Love in its purest sense is an unwavering commitment to the development and wellbeing of another, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, physically and materially, even if the person does not deserve or reciprocate the gesture. It is what makes you patient: that is to have an enduring hope of the best even in the face of contradiction. It is what makes you give, give and give again.
Giving can be without love, but love cannot be without giving: I may give away everything I have… but I gain nothing if I do not have love.
True giving is the conferment of (right of) ownership of something to another without a cost of any kind to the person that receives the gift. It takes its root from a giving-heart, even a heart of love. This is the sense in which God gave us the greatest gift:
GOD loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him may not be lost but have eternal life.
Respect means to esteem another. It is to have good regard and high opinion of someone; it is to have deference and admiration. It means to stand in awe! Stand in awe, of whom? In awe of someone made in the image and likeness of the Living God just as you are. It is mutual.
I PRAY that God will grant you the grace to build yourself in His kind of love, a love that never fails, thus improving your life and bringing you into a successful life as you build your relationships according to His pattern. Amen.
Thank you. Do not forget to keep Living, Loving and Learning
References: 1 Corinthians 13:3, NKJV; John 3:16, NCV.
