A More Beautiful LifeSample

All Your People

You deserve meaningful, fulfilling, life-giving, happy relationships. You deserve a romantic relationship that feels supportive and contented (if you want). You deserve to have a rich and rewarding relationship with your children. You deserve to have friends you can call when you’re having a bad day or are in a crisis. You deserve to be heard.

God created us as relational beings. We were created for relationship with others and relationship with God.

Spiritually, relational needs run deep. We are designed for connection. In addition to needing relationships for our emotional health, relationships keep us alive. Back in the caveman days, when the lizard brain worked much harder, groups and tribes meant safety and survival.

But the need for relationships doesn’t stop there. The importance of relationships is not about being in general relationship with others. It’s about creating the kinds of relationships where love flows. “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). When we create mutually beneficial relationships, we benefit others, and we are filled with light and love.

And yet somehow relationships have a way of either falling to the bottom of the priority list or taking up so much space in our minds that we can’t seem to get much else done. The result? We don’t have many meaningful relationships.

Relationships are a huge factor in what makes everyday life worth living. We enjoy relationships. Relationships motivate us. They can transform our work and duties, making the mundane meaningful. Relationships can make painful experiences purposeful, and they can bring us joy and solace in tough times. Even our most difficult relationships shape us into the people we are. Take a minute and think about some difficult relationships and what you have learned by setting boundaries and giving yourself space.

When it comes to relationships, people tend to make a couple of mistakes.

The first mistake so many of us make is thinking that relationships aren’t important—that life is all about you and your agenda. You might know people like this. I know I do. It’s not that I don’t value my relationships. I just sometimes act like they aren’t important. I get caught up in life, my schedule, and duties and forget to intentionally love my people.

The second mistake people make when it comes to relationships can be just as disrupting to our lives. If the data and my personal experience ring true, you might relate more to this second mistake than to the first. That is, we let our relationships come before our own physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. The second mistake is an inverse of the first.

Do you ever find yourself stressed and worried about the neighbor who needs you to pick up his packages, the new mom who needs a lasagna, the fundraiser you agreed to chair, the text message you forgot to return, the friend you haven’t heard from in several months, the cousin going through a health scare, a child struggling in school, another child struggling emotionally, your husband’s birthday tomorrow . . . should I go on? Does this sound too familiar?

If you’re like most women I know, you know that relationships matter. You care about your people. You want them to succeed. And so you persistently pour into everyone you meet. But it’s possible to invest too much in too many people. And when you do this, everybody suffers.

Obviously, altogether disregarding relationships is one issue. But overinvesting in too many relationships is equally damaging and dangerous. Take a minute to think about what your tendency is with relationships.

Do you overinvest?

Underinvest?

Or maybe you find yourself, ever so confusingly, fluctuating between the two.

Either way, the All Your People Life Segment is meant to help us bring our relationships back into balance.

I know I can cut corners here, prioritizing others at the expense of myself, but I won’t be able to love others to the best of my ability—because I won’t be at my best. Then again, if I hyper-focus on my goals and objectives, without investing HEART into my people, I’m setting myself up for destructive relationships.

The Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19 ESV). To make it even more explicit: love your neighbor as you love yourself. First, love yourself. Then you can love others the way God wants us to.

Respond

Think about the healthy relationships in your life. What makes them healthy?

Now think about the unhealthy ones. How can you improve them? Or should you let them go?

Prayer

Lord and Savior, thank You for the relationships you have placed in my life. Help me love them well.