Healthy Relationships – Part 5

As you know: 

• The Amazing Creator God intricately designed us. He created us to have a spirit, soul and body 
• What makes us tick is complex
• What we have been through in life affects us
• Our default is to follow the pattern of the Fall

When we pair the complexities of human nature with the fact there are so many elements in a relationship (it’s not just made up of one or two elements), it’s understandable this series can’t cover everything about us and our relationships! 

So the purpose of this series is to help you start your ‘home improvement relationships’ journey by developing an awareness of:

• Your design: you are created by God for healthy relationships, created with the capacity to choose & created to take responsibility for your choices and actions
• The importance of inviting God into your relationships
• Patterns in relationships
• What is going on in you (seeing yourself in the picture)
• Another way to look at your relationships so you can change your thoughts, words, actions, etc. 

And providing you with ‘tools’ (e.g. love, trust, understanding & respect) to put in your tool belt, to use in your ‘home improvement’. 

Let’s return to our fixer upper analogy, so far we have:

• Assessed the condition of the home
• Checked the key components (is it structurally sound?)
• Found cracks caused by structural damage, so we bought in the experts to fix the damage. When we translate this to our ‘home improvement on relationships,’ it means opening our hearts and lives for God to work in us and bring inner healing. 

Many people hire a house inspector to check a property, so they have an accurate view of the house and so there are no hidden surprises! As you continue with your ‘home improvement’, ask the Holy Spirit to be your Inspector. Ask Him to give you an accurate view of what is going on in your life and relationships. Ask Him what He wants to work on in your life and relationships. Remember, God loves you and He made you for healthy relationships! 

Back to our fixer upper analogy, each fixer upper is different. Each house will have it’s own unique elements that need fixing, it could be:

• Above (clogged gutters)
• Under (unwelcome tenants – pest control)
• Around (the fencing, i.e. boundaries); or
• Through (walls need to be taken down)

The same applies to ‘home improvement of relationships,’ each relationship has it’s own unique elements that need work, e.g. boundaries. As you continue, ask God to guide you on this journey and show you the elements you need to focus on.

Welcome to this edition of healthy relationships! Ok, dear one, stop for a moment and think about your relationships…pick one relationship…think about an issue, and ask yourself, ‘what is the cause of conflict?’ Can you name the problem? Did you say, “it’s finances” or “it’s the other person (if only he or she would…)”? Ok, hold on to that thought…we’ll come back to it! 

Let’s do a quick recap:  

Adam and Eve had a healthy growing satisfying relationship with God and with each other… but then they chose to listen to Satan and disobey God’s instruction. When God questioned Adam and Eve…they pointed the finger at each other. A pattern was set in the Garden of Eden.

This time we’ll look at another element of the pattern set in the Garden of Eden. When God came to question Adam and Eve, they hid because they were afraid (Gen. 3:8-10). Sin came as a result of the Fall, and as Romans 3 says, no one is born righteous; we are all born sinners. The pattern set in the Garden of Eden is usually our default…until we learn another way by reading in God’s word, the pattern He designed…which results in healthy, growing and satisfying relationships.

Let’s return to the opening question. You may have answered, yes, finances are the problem, or the other person (if only he/she would do…or stop doing…), or you may have given another answer. Let’s take a closer look at this. The conflict you have named, e.g. finances, could be the topicof the disagreement and it could put fuel on the fire, but it might not be the real problem. There is often something deeper going on…there is a pattern that appears many times in conflict. In this edition of healthy relationships, I am indebted to Dr Gary Smalley’s book “The DNA of relationships.” 

Just as we saw finger pointing after the Fall, fear entered the world because of the Fall. The National Institute of Marriage isolated the most common fears to men and women. The team noticed the common fears are all related to two primary fears: 

• The fear of being controlled (losing power) 
• The fear of being disconnected (separation from people and being alone). 

Many women have a core fear relating to disconnection -not being heard, not being valued, somehow losing the love of another. Many men have a core fear of helplessness or feeling controlled – they fear failure or getting stepped on. To some degree some version of these two core fears exist in everyone. Read through the most common core fears below to identify your core fear(s) and then we’ll look at how core fears affect our relationships.

My core fear is that I feel…

• Helpless, powerless, impotent or controlled
• Rejected, as if people are closing me out of their lives
• Abandoned or left behind, as in divorce
• Disconnected from others or alone
• Like a failure
• Unloved, as if no one could love me
• Defective, as if something is wrong with me, as if I’m the problem
• Inadequate, as if I just don’t measure up to others like I should
• Pained both emotionally and physically
• Hypocritical or like a phony
• Inferior, as if I’m being placed below everyone else in value (belittled)
• Cheated or ripped off or taken advantage of 
• Invalidated, as if my words and actions are being ignored or devalued
• Unfulfilled, as if what is happening will lead to a dissatisfied life
• Humiliated, as if I have no dignity or self-respect
• Manipulated, as if others are deceiving me
• Isolated, as if others are planning to ignore me

Did you identify your core fear(s)? 

Now you know what your core fear is, as we continue, we’ll look at what happens when the fear button (of your core fear – the above points) is pushed, and how the default is to react and as a result relationships suffer. 

Our fears and our wants are linked:

• You want to be respected, but you fear you will be looked down on
• You want to be accepted, but you fear you are not good enough
• You want to control your situation, but you fear you are powerless
• You want to connect, but you fear you are not competent enough, attractive enough, smart enough, etc. 

When you feel your wants won’t be fulfilled, fear kicks in and that leads to the pattern of reaction. Most of us use unhealthy patterns to stop the hurt and it sabotages our relationships. Here’s an example of what that looks like, for many men, when their fear button is pushed, their default is to withdraw, so the man withdraws, which then pushes the fear button of disconnection in the woman (common core fear). When an individual’s fear button is pushed the default is to react to the hurt by trying to stop “feeling failed…or invalidated…or whatever the core fear is…and this is when things are said and done in the ‘heat of the moment.’ Reacting can make problems worse and the cycle of unhealthy patterns continues. Let’s take a closer look:

When the fear button is pushed, it leads to: 

• Hurt 
• Want: you want a solution – it could be trying to make the other person say or do something so you feel better. This means you see the other person as the problem, but also the solution. When we expect people, places and things to fulfill our wants, we’ll be disappointed. It puts our need for help in the wrong place and leads to fear. God designed us to be dependant on Him therefore our dependency is to be on God, not on a person. 
• Fear: it taps into your core fear
• React: you react to the fear

See how it works? 

We can’t change unless we know: 

• What is going on 
• Why it is happening

You don’t have to stay on the default pattern – there is a choice! We live in a fallen world and your ‘fear button’ will be pushed and it’s important to:

• Realise it’s not just about what the other person said or did (see yourself in the picture)
• Know what you do or say in response determines what happens next (will you react to what was said or respond?). * Remember, you can only control yourself, not others.

Often it’s not the situation or person that makes us feel something or respond in a certain way, it’s how we look at or interpret the situation and person’s actions. In other words, our thoughts and beliefs about an event affect our emotions and behaviour. 

It’s not always easy to do something different, especially if there are difficulties in the relationship. But, dear one, stop for a moment, take a step back from how things look, and think about what you really want. Ask yourself, “do I want things to be the same, this time next year…or do I want things to change?” If you want change, you are not alone in this journey; you can invite God in to your relationship. He will walk with you on this journey, and in tough times, He will carry you, sustain and strengthen you. God can step into a situation that looks hopeless…and He can turn it around! God is a God of the impossible! God created you for healthy, satisfying, growing relationships! “When, in spite of what you feel or what your circumstances tell you, you choose to believe what God’s Word says…this is biblical faith. Faith isn’t positive thinking, denying the reality of your circumstances; faith is denying these circumstances the right to remain in control of your life. This exalts God above your situation, and changes your perspective.” Choose God’s way rather than the pattern set at the Fall. 

A new way (some tips to get you started): 

• Identify your core fear

• Know the default is to react when your fear button is pressed

• See yourself in the picture: take control of your thoughts. Don’t look to others to make you happy (i.e. don’t give others control of your emotions). You are to control your emotions. Don’t just instantly believe your emotions. Remember, they alert you to the fact something is happening. Evaluate your emotions. Question them before believing and acting on them (emotional perceptions can misinterpret truth, they don’t always get it right).

• Work on you: Take control of your fear button. Take responsibility for your actions. Don’t choose the default pattern, choose God’s pattern for healthy satisfying growing relationships. Begin to pray, invite God to work in you and your relationships. Ask God to show you His pattern for healthy relationships as you read scriptures on relationships.

• Work on creating a safe environment: build trust, be there for each other (including emotional availability) and respond sensitively (not harshly). Work on: listening to understand others… what are they saying?…what are they feeling?…don’t judge or assume things…find out what the person meant. Value differences…you aren’t against each other, you can complement each other through your differences (and let’s face it, no one wants a carbon copy of themselves)!

• You can ask others for assistance, you can’t force them to meet your needs. 

• When you disagree – don’t focus on the past, stay in the here and now. Don’t have a winner and a loser. In a win lose situation, one person wins and the other person is stepped on and squashed and as a result the relationship receives damage. Nobody wins when an individual is wounded and the relationship is damaged. Create a win win situation, where there is a win for those involved, and a win for the relationship. For example, in a marriage, instead of seeing a disagreement as you against your spouse, realise you are a team, and if the team wins, you win. Going through a disagreement can strengthen your relationship, if you handle it well, e.g. don’t push your position on another and cause hurt, do listen to see where the other person is coming from, remove judgment from the picture, work on understanding each other’s position. Invite God into the situation. 

• Forgive, put on love and let God’s peace rule:

Colossians 3:13-15

¹³ Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive].

¹⁴ And above all these [put on] love and enfold yourselves with the bond of perfectness [which binds everything together completely in ideal harmony]. ¹⁵ And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live]. And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always]. 

• Put your need for help in the right place – in God. Remember, you can only change yourself; you can’t change others. And if you try and change the other person, it doesn’t work…ever. God is the only solution! Ask God for His divine intervention in your relationships! You are precious to God; He loves you and cares about you. And the people in your world are precious to God; He loves them and cares about them! He made us for relationships and He wants to bring healing and restoration where it is needed! 

To close, as you give your relationships to God in prayer, know dear one, God can be trusted! Let’s take a closer look at the One to whom you pray:

What is your perception of God? 

What is that perception based on? How your Dad treated you? What someone told you? How you feel? Or is it based on God’s Word?

Many people base their view of God on how their Dad treated them, but to get an accurate view on who God is and how He sees you and how He treats you, you have to go to God’s Word:

• He is the loving, concerned Father who is interested in the intimate details of our lives (Matt. 6:25-34)
• He is the Father who never gives up on us (Luke 15:3-32)
• He is the God who sent His Son to die for us though we were undeserving (Rom 5:8)
• He stands with us in good and bad circumstances (Heb 13:5)
• He is the ever-active Creator of our universe. He died to heal our sickness, pain and grief (Isaiah 53:3-6)
• He has broken the power of death (Luke 24:6-7)
• He is available to us through prayer (John 14:13-14)
• He is aware of our needs (Isa. 65:24)
• He created us for an eternal relationship with Him (John 3:16)
• He values us (Luke 7:28)
• He doesn’t condemn us (Rom. 8:1)
• God values and causes our growth (1 Cor. 3:7)
• He comforts us (2 Cor. 1:3-5)
• He strengthens us through His Spirit (Eph. 3:16)
• He cleanses us from sin (Heb. 10: 17-22)
• He is for us (Rom. 8:31)
• He is always available to us (Rom. 8:38-39)
• He is a God of hope (Rom. 15:13)
• He provides a way to escape temptation (Heb 2:17-18 and 1 Cor. 10:13)
• He is at work in us (Phil 2:13)
• He wants us to be free (Gal. 5:1)
• He is the Lord of time and eternity (Rev. 1:8)

Next time we’ll cover the first of the four components – love! See ya then!

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