I have been studying and learning about relationships for over 20 years. I have read lots of books, gone to seminars, listened to hundreds of messages and talks and have even done some writing of my own on this topic of relationships and marriage. Of all the resources I have found the Bible to be the absolute best at teaching us how to have healthy relationships.
As I have studied the Bible and other resources I have picked up some keys to healthy relationships. One of the overriding themes I have gotten is that we all have choices in life and relationships. We can’t always choose our relationships, but we can choose how we will think and act in those relationships. The relationships that we do get to choose, we continue to choose how healthy they become. We can choose who we spend our time with and we also choose actions that either damage or repair our relationships on a daily basis. We have three main choices:
- We choose each day whether we will work at improving or destroying our relationships.
- Every day we pick our priorities – who we spend time with, how we spend our money, where we put our energy and who gets our attention. Getting out of balance is so easy when we lives busy lives.
- The biggest choice we make every day is what we think about when something happens in our life. You see, it’s not what happens to you that determines your response, it’s what you think that determines your emotional response to what happened or what was said.
Here are some questions for you to ponder from author Gary Smalley:
- Have you ever identified a pattern in your relationships where the problem is always the other person’s fault? Have you ever felt helpless when the other person refuses to change?
- What type of choices do you make with others? Are you willing to repair any of your relationships? Make a list of the relationships that are in need of repair.
- Would you say it is time to start making some changes? List a few of the changes you would like to make.
Did you know that we were designed with the ability to control all of our thoughts and therefore all of your emotions? Wow, that’s a knew thought.
Proverbs 23:7 says “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” and Galatians 6:7 says “Whatever a man sows in his heart, that is what he will reap.”
So, what we choose to think about and focus on will determine all of our emotions. After each experience we have, our mind starts going into high gear. We analyze what just happened. We fill in the gaps with assumptions and we draw our thinking from previous experience to determine what the future results will be. All of those thoughts start to stir up our emotions, which causes our stress level to slowly or quickly rise. When our stress level is elevated our body begins to react chemically in order to physically respond to the stress. That often causes us to respond or react in ways that are not healthy. Soon we are in a vicious cycle that deteriorates the relationships we value the most.
I hope you get the picture. In my next post I will talk about some Scriptures that we can focus on to transform our thinking and therefore our emotions and then our behavior. That then leads us to more power, love, fulfillment and life.