A standard disclaimer is necessary for this post: I’m not, in any way, shape, or form, a relationship expert. In fact, I’m writing about relationships, and I’m a single, never-been-married woman who is content with being whatever God wants me to be today. To say my life belongs to Him and then pine over what I don’t have or over what I think I want is to say He’s doing something wrong. So I’ve decided that I can whine until I’m purple in the face (in which case, I come home to an empty house and I have a purple face—which is highly unattractive), or I can be the best me that I’m supposed to be today. I make it a daily practice to choose the latter.

This past spring, my niece loaned me a great book: Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp. When you finish reading this post, please, please, please either get this for your Kindle (it’s $3.03 right now!) or order the hard copy. (I’ll post an affiliate link below so that, if you’d like to, and without paying any extra, you can help support this blog by ordering through that link.) My standard M. O. with most relationships—from friends, to family, to dating—is to begin with more gusto than I should and then run if anything gets “messy.” I had set this book aside several times, but I finally read it all the way through, and I found it to cover all kinds of relationships, all kinds of relevant Scriptures, and all kinds of examples that I’m pretty certain were based on secret notes that all my friends, family members, and past boyfriends sent the authors. Wow! But the pain was worth it. Even though I’ve already blown it big time within the last two weeks, I was reminded that grace is a necessary element of every relationship!

The book I’m in the process of reading right now is a book that I won through a contest held by the author, Mary DeMuth. I logged into Twitter one night and saw a note about the contest, completed my entry, and found out two days later that I had won—and it was truly a win! The Wall around Your Heart: How Jesus Heals You When Others Hurt You is side-by-side with Relationships: A Mess Worth Making as one of the best reads I’ve had in a long time. Again, I have recently failed miserably at applying these principles, but the truths will knock your socks off, and I’m eager for God’s grace to provide future opportunities for application. As a woman who goes all-out in what she does, it’s easy for relationships to consume me, taking the place of my wonderful God. So the arrow that took the form of the following quotation from Mary DeMuth hit me between the eyes and went straight to my heart when I read it yesterday:

The more we place expectations on people, the more idolatrous they become in our lives. We serve a jealous God who will not allow us to worship people over Him. Sometimes He moves our relationships in painful ways to remind us of this truth.

Because of several major changes taking place in my life, I’ve thought about my relationships (with friends, family, etc.) a lot lately—perhaps even over thinking them. Oddly, I kept thinking that I needed to align my thoughts on loving these individuals based on the oft-quoted I Corinthians 13 (which, indeed, should be the goal). I admit with red face that when I tried that, I felt like a failure. (Love is patient—I’m not, so therefore, I must not know how to truly love others, so why bother; love believes all things—I too often believe what I wish rather than what is true, so once again, I have not made it through the filter of this perfect standard.) For me, personally, I have actually found that I Corinthians 13 is a good relationship chapter, but Philippians 4:8 is a great relationship verse!

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. —Philippians 4:8, NLT

Instead of letting my mind filter its thoughts through what-ifs, if-onlys, “I’ll bet this is what he’s thinking,” or “I’m sure this is what she’s doing,” I must stop to think on what I know to be true. For example, while on a long-distance call with a friend, what if she says that she needs to hang up because something needs her attention, and she says she’ll call me back later that afternoon? By 6:30 p.m., she still hasn’t called. What is true is simply this: she didn’t call me back when she implied that she would. But my sin-prone mind begins to entertain thoughts like: She must be mad at me. She must not want to spend time talking with me after all. She must have lied to me just to get me off the phone. Those are not relationship-buiding thoughts. Those are negative, influenced-by-the-world-around-me thoughts that don’t align with Scripture.

Additionally, when thinking about others, we are to think on things that are honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise. Do I think about the admirable traits in others, or do I dwell on what I think they’ve done wrong? (This does, in fact, line up with the love ruler in I Corinthians 13, which states that love doesn’t keep account of the wrongs it has suffered. People mess up. Love keeps moving forward.) One response is based on truth; the other, on reactions to unmet expectations.

So, using one of my favorite phrases, I’m going to “bottom line it, baby.” Relationships aren’t easy—at any level. But they’re worth it. And that, my friend, is the truth.

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Here are the links to the two books I mentioned. Again, these are affiliate links, meaning that I get a little “thank you” funding from Amazon (at no additional cost to you) for sharing these links. Thank you for supporting this website/blog through your purchases!

Kindle

Paperback

Kindle

Paperback