relationships on Reciprocity

It’s been said home is the place where they have to let you in. While it’s a reach to say I’m friends with each of my family members, our relationships thrive because we share a mutual, understood res...

Lord, help us to be a people known for the ways in which we live out our faith by loving and serving all people, even those who, in the world’s eyes, have little to offer us. By treating them with dig...

What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds

In I’d Like You More If You Were More Like Me , John Ortberg uses an interesting analogy for an aspect of our relationships. In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner announced the Starshot Initiati...

The key for successful personal relationships and ministry is to understand and accept others as having a viewpoint as worthy of consideration as our own.

Hospitality does not entail helping another so much as immersing oneself in a new reality, entering into a new relationship with one who before was unknown or unappreciated. The nothing of “being with...

We value people for what they do for us rather than as fellow human beings created to enjoy God and made in his image.

May we be no one’s enemy, and may we be the friend of all that is eternal and abides with Christ. May we never quarrel with those nearest us; and if we do, may we be reconciled quickly. May we love,...

Gracious God, you call us to a life of intimate relationship with you and with one another. You call us to a life of community, where we actively seek the needs of others before our own. We acknowledg...

The concept of shalom resonates with vision of an ideal society in other cultures as well, notably in Asia and Africa. In Asia, sangsaeng is an ancient concept “of sharing community and economy togeth...

Gracious God, thank you for the gift of your presence and opportunities to be fully present with others. In our selfishness and impatience, we seek to connect with those not in the room. God, help us ...

Yes, we should treat everyone right, but treating everyone right doesn’t mean we treat everyone the same. Jesus didn’t. Relating to people properly should not be confused with treating them equally.

We cannot be closed off to one another and be open to God. That’s not how this works. Do you remember the commercial when the woman says “that’s not how this works, that's not how any of this work...

We were created with this relational likeness and we long for relational connection because God exists in a relationship of love.

I sit in a bright-lit June meadow at the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. It is early afternoon, and I have been here since morning in what can only be described as an uneasy sol...

Almost everything we do touches a relationship in some way. Just think about your day. Whether you’re at home or at work, driving your car, playing, exercising, shopping, vacationing, worshipping at c...

The basis of life is people and how they relate to each other. Our success, fulfillment, and happiness depend upon our ability to relate effectively. The best way to become a person that others are dr...

We are relational beings because we are created in the image of a relational God.

What Value is there in Short-Term Missions?  Over the years, I have had people ask me why my family and I go on short-term mission trips. Some of the more cynical have wondered aloud, “Isn’t it reall...

In shalom, each person enjoys justice, enjoys his or her rights. There is no shalom without justice. But shalom goes beyond justice. Shalom is the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relat...

God uses our relationships with other people to teach us how to love him. The more we pursue intimacy in our other relationships, the more we see and understand God’s incredible, audacious love for us...

Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel...

Learning how to love your neighbor requires a willingness to draw on the strength of Jesus Christ as you die to self and live for Him. Living in this manner allows you to practice biblical love for ot...

The good life is built with good relationships.

Gracious God, again we thank you for creating us in your image. Today, we are reminded that your image is not captured fully in the solitary individual but also and necessarily in human community. In ...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

[I] try to get into their world a little bit [by listening to hip-hop], because if they’re only adapting to you and you’re not adapting to them in some way, I don’t think you’ve developed a relationsh...

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good l...

To become peacemakers, then, we must begin with ourselves. We must ask ourselves, “Why do I make cutting remarks to another person? Why do I make demeaning remarks about them?” We must also ask oursel...

Trust is sweet. It is better than gold. Trust is always a gift of the heart, and therefore it just may be the most precious thing in life, next to love. Trust between two people is so valuable and pre...