The Measure of Relationships

How do you measure your relationships?

Now that's complicated.

What kind of relationships?

Let's say your relationship with God.

We muddle this up all the time. I link success with relationship. If I'm successful then God must really love me. When life is going as I think it should (or better), then I measure our relationship as full.

Why not?

After all, we all know that success, favor, and blessings are key indicators of being God's chosen people. But the truth is Jesus said that we are to pick up our cross and follow him.

Your success is not a true measure your relationship with Christ.

What about the second most important relationship for some of us? Marriage.

How do you measure your marriage?

Is it how many times you have sex in a week? Is it how many intimate conversations you share? Or maybe the scale is the square footage of your house, the year, make, and model of your car, and how many beautiful children you have? (Your State Farm agent can measure your relationship for you.) Maybe it's that you get along and don't argue. Perhaps it's that you are in control. Maybe it's that you haven't gotten a divorce.

At the risk of sounding sexist, women you are called to submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord (Ephesians 5). Many women fail at doing this and so when they measure their marriage it's empty.

But men, you are called to love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Men, we are called to sacrifice our lives for our wives. This is difficult. What does that look like? Maybe it's loving your hobbies and work less, so that you can love your wife more.

We are called to live as a sacrifice for our wives and not so we can get something in return. Men, the majority of time we are to blame for our empty marriages.

How do you measure relationship with friends?

Is it how much you hang out? And what kind of time you have when you do? Is it if you have the same interests, beliefs, and hobbies? If they are...well pretty much an mirror image of you? Maybe it's how vulnerable you can be with them. Is it how much you can trust them and if they are there for you when you need or want them? Or is it how many text messages you receive in a billing month?

Jesus once again sets the standard for measuring a friendship. Jesus commanded us to love one another as he loved us (which included him laying down his life for us). Paul said that we are to be kind and forgiving to our friends.

Most often we measure our relationships with one scale: What do I get?

That's why if God isn't giving you what you are asking for, you feel like you are missing something. That's why our marriages suck, because they are filled with selfishness. That's why when you feel a friend has screwed you over (instead of offering kindness and forgiveness), you close the door.

Don't measure your relationships by what you get in return.

Measure them by how much of yourself you give.

Selflessness is the measure of relationship, not selfishness. Selfishness destroys relationships. Selflessness nurtures it.

Don't measure to compare yourself to others, but to evaluate your own life.

How much of yourself do you give in your relationships?