I’ve been thinking lately about our personal vision. What I mean, is the vision we have for ourselves. I think sometimes in Christian circles we get more focused on what we want to stop doing, and what we wish were not part of our life that we spend little time on what we could be. What I mean is if our focus is all about what shouldn’t be there then won’t we be thinking about the negative?
This past Sunday we talked about how nice holds us back from truly healthy relationships. We said a better, more biblical way to think about relationships, is not think about “nice” but to think about “kind”. And we talked about 3 words that illuminate and expand our understanding of “kindness”. Those words are: Loving, Truthful and Compassionate. Here is the segment I shared on “Loving” – I do pray a review of these thoughts will be helpful in your journey to healthy, meaningful relationships. By the way, Ephesians 4:17-32 was the main text for this and serves as the foundation for what was taught.
It’s an interesting time to be alive. “Tolerance” has become the highest virtue in our country and what’s somewhat funny is we don’t tolerate the slightest bit of intolerance. But what is “tolerance”?
The definition from dictionary.com is: a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own;
Yesterday I wrote about how the presence of conflict can actually be helpful in a relationship because it means two people care and are bringing a piece of them into the situation. Obviously conflict can be handled poorly, which is one of the big reasons I think people avoid it like the stomach flu. When I do premarital counseling, I tend to go through a segment we call “fighting fair” and while the principles apply in marriage, some of them are very applicable in any meaningful relationship. I won’t share them all with you (you have to go through our program if you want that) but I will share a few of the more pertinent ones. So here’s some counsel on “fighting fair”…
This week we’re talking about relationships. The question today: is a lack of conflict always a good thing?
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