Category: relationships

I’ve realized that in order for a relationship to work, both parties must be willing and interested to work out the relationship.  It can never work when only one person cares about it.

This is the reason why God respects our freewill, because He doesn’t want to force us just to love Him back.  It can never work out that way.  Even if God is all too willing to give us the best things, His love wouldn’t be able to form a relationship with us unless we are willing to receive that which is being given us.

Even The Sincerest Affection Can Be Ignored

In human relationships, our love, no matter how sincere it may be could also be rejected or ignored.  Though we do not love as unconditionally as God loves, we have a certain capacity to go on loving another person even if that person doesn’t love us back.  Still, without being able to respond to our love, a relationship is not truly forged, and both could not reap the sweet fruits of a truly meaningful and mutual relationship.

Why We Fall For Another Person

It can happen that we fall in love with a certain person because we see something beautiful in him, something he may not even see in himself.  Seeing this beauty that we may also have failed to find or develop in ourselves, we transfer all our love to that person who has it, and that person becomes our world, the very meaning of our lives.

Why The Relationship Doesn’t Work

That person however may not support us back, he may not even love himself the way we love him.  Thus, his actions do not produce a return flow of love either towards himself or towards us.  He is like a cistern with many holes that never gets filled, and that never really gets happy and satisfied.

For this reason, we don’t feel satisfied too, for all that we want is his happiness, for we have anchored our happiness upon his.

One question would be, “Why does he still maintain the superficial relationship if he doesn’t care so much about it?” Maybe he still derives some benefit from it, like someone who can always listen to his complaints or someone who could keep him company or maybe he just feels obliged somewhat to return the favor.

But he is not as attached to the relationship as the other person is because he may not have seen the beauty in the other person to really capture his heart.  His heart may also be closed such that he can’t accept anybody in it.  Or he could have a lot of filters, he wants some form or type of love which the other person couldn’t offer him.

Not having found his pearl of great price, he has the tendency to desert the relationship anytime.  Note that even while he is in the relationship, he is not happy and is not able to avail of the full benefits of the relationship.  He could then threaten to leave anytime whenever he finds another relationship that gives him the same benefits or even more, or whenever he already feels uncomfortable, irritated or guilty by being unable to meet the demands of the other person.

Do you have a true relationship with both people mutually working out for its good?

When a relationship ends, it’s hard to separate the good memories from the painful ones. It’s hard for us to let go because we don’t want to put to waste all the good things that has happened to us all those years.  At the same time, we can’t just discard the painful memories, we can’t pretend that those things never happened because they have, and they have taught us things we just can’t leave behind.

Maybe one way to reconcile this is to think that even our painful memories have turned out to work for our good. We are now wiser and stronger because of them, and they’re as much a part of us as all the other good memories we had with the people we loved.

One relationship may end, but a new one may still begin, a new relationship formed by two people who have already changed and become better from everything that they’ve been through, both the good ones and the bad.

One of the first things that get affected after a breakup is the person’s self-esteem.  In our confusion, we often ask ourselves where we failed, what we lacked, what the other person wanted that we didn’t have.  Rarely however could we find definite answers to everything we wanted to understand.  The other person may not even be able to answer us as he may just be as confused as we are.

There may even be cases where after a long separation, the other person suddenly comes back, and with a contrite heart, asks for forgiveness and desires to restore our relationship with them.  This brings about new questions within us and we ask ourselves if we have done something recently that got their attention or if we have somehow changed in such a way that we have become more attractive and worthy of love.

Though there may be some truth in these thoughts of ours, let us not forget that not every bad thing that happens in our relationships is our fault.  People leave for many other reasons and come back for reasons only they could possibly explain to themselves.

Why did they leave us in the first place? Maybe they needed time to find out who they really are apart from the relationship.  Why did they come back?  Maybe only after finding out who they are could they appreciate our worth and see also the beauty in who we are.

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. – Anais Nin

There is only one limit to the power of God’s workings in our lives – TRUST.

We can’t give much to people who can’t trust us.  First of all, they would find it difficult, if not impossible to accept any good we want to do for them.  Further, the effect of anything we do for them will not be the same had they trusted us and received everything we’re giving them wholeheartedly and with joy.  People may even think we’re insulting them, that we have a hidden agenda or that we’re intending to do them harm.

The same is true with God.  No matter how much blessing God wants to shower upon us, we can only receive so much as our faith can allow us.

If we believe God to be selfish, we’d think He is only using us or that He would make us pay later on for everything we receive from Him.

But how do we trust someone? We trust someone by being able to know them very well.  How do we know him well enough? More than theoretical knowledge or heresy, we get to know a person well by personal contact and interaction with him, by being in his presence.

So it is with God.  We can read hundreds of books about Him and still remain doubtful of His goodness.  We can argue.  We can discuss philosophy.  But if we never have a personal encounter with him, we’ll never know Him.  We’ll never be able to trust in Him.

“We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter.  It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored. – A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God”

Do you want to improve your relationship with someone? Spend more time with him, be in his presence.  Maybe then you’d get to know him well enough.  You’d know his heartaches, his plans, his innermost desires.  Maybe you’d discover how much you really matter to him and how he has already sacrificed a lot for your sake.  Maybe you’d feel something change within your heart as trust naturally springs forth from your encounters.  Maybe you’d know what it really means to be loved.

“Trust in the LORD and do good, dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. – Psalm 37:3”

FREE Download – “The Pursuit of God”

True friendship consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and value. – Ben Jonson

We can easily be deceived into thinking we have many friends.  This is especially so when we’re successful and we find ourselves always surrounded by people who applaud us in everything we do.

Even Jesus had such a period of time when He was always surrounded by a crowd of people that loved Him and followed Him wherever He went.  Invitations were numerous, almost everyone wanted His company.  It was an honor to be among His inner circle, not to mention quite beneficial too, for He had great power that could even heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead to life! Who wouldn’t want to have a friend like that?

No doubt, Jesus had been a true friend.  He did His best to help many, He wept with those who wept, He saved those who were condemned, He even performed a miracle to save some friends from social embarrassment when He turned water into wine though it was not yet His time to do so.

He had been there for everyone who needed Him, and He turned away no one who came to Him.

Why then had He been deserted by even His closest friends during the darkest hours of His life?

When He needed the disciples to be with Him, why had they been found sleeping?  Why had they been so easily scattered when Jesus had been arrested?  Why on earth had He been betrayed by one of His closest friends?

We can relate to this pain, this abandonment.  We can relate to this feeling of betrayal after we’ve done everything we could to make a relationship work.  Have we not been good and caring enough?  Have we not tried to become a good friend all these years?

We then realize that it’s not always our fault when things don’t work out as we wanted them to.  We realize that a person’s life consists of making difficult decisions and of making a choice based on what’s valuable to each one.

Tough times test this value. Difficult times enable us to know which friendships could really last.

People can so easily give out of their surplus, out of the things they don’t really need.  But who could give even out of their pain?  Who could be there for us even when it would no longer be comfortable for them to do so?

Only true friends can do that.

“A friend is someone who is there for you when he’d rather be anywhere else.”
– Len Wein

Jesus stayed even when it was no longer comfortable.  He remained our friend even if it meant being hurt and laying down His own life to save us.

If we could try to count with our fingers all the people right now who could lay down our life for us, maybe we don’t even have to use both hands in doing so.

“In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion-the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers.” -Pam Brown

You may be receiving a lot of things from a lot of people right now, but when you think about it, are they giving out only from their excesses?  When tough times come, would these people still be able to think about you and share from what little they have left?

Fear not the dark times for they reveal more things than those you could see in the light.  Things may not always go about as smoothly as we planned, but times such as these give us the opportunity to prove our friendships and to see what it is we really value most in life.

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
– John 15:13, NASB