Developing and Maintaining Quality Relationships

I don't claim to be an expert on developing and maintaining quality relationships. But I have lived in several different locations over the course of my lifetime and been blessed by God to develop wonderful friends in various places and been able to keep in contact with many of them.

Ideally, we are to be friends with everyone and to love even our enemies as Jesus and the Apostle Paul taught. Indeed, if we love our "enemies," there is a good probability that we will find we have no enemies.

I consider everyone a friend. But friendship comes in various forms. We are different types of friends to different people. Some persons who are further along the right path than us can mentor and lead us more than we help them; some are at a similar stage to us and we help one another in approximately equal amounts. For others who are struggling along the way, we may help them more than they help us. As time goes on and relationships progress we can help one another (as well as fellowship) in different ways.

The key to successful relationships though is that they involve someone helping someone else or better yet each individual helping one another. What we want to avoid is allowing ourselves to be dragged down by compromising our morals to make someone else happy.

Christian fun, fellowship, and discipleship are great. But compromising one's morals to "make a friend happy" is wrong. Stand firmly for what is right in a compassionate, loving way. That is a key part of developing and maintaining true friendships.

Do I always succeed in perfectly obeying God's leadership in the way I handle friendships? No, and I doubt that anyone ever does. But I am seeking to progress toward God's perfect path for me whatever that may be.

Furthermore, with e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, cheaper long distance phone rates, etc., it is easier to stay in contact with friends than it was decades ago. This is a blessing. And automobiles and mass transit make travel faster, easier, and cheaper than it was centuries ago when this country was founded.

It is a blessing to enjoy good friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintances, etc. I am blessed immeasurably and hope you are, too.