Are you satisfied with the quality of your relationships? Do you have people in your life who know everything about you and who have journeyed with you for not just years, but decades? Do you have friendships where you have gotten muddy together, but have come out of it stronger? I believe that most people would agree that there is a direct relationship between the quality of life and the quality of our relationships. Unfortunately, relationship building has fallen on hard times in our culture. This can be attributed to many factors, but two of the biggest are the fragmentation of family and community and the transitory lifestyle. All these factors contribute to the disintegration of community at all levels within our culture.
Though most would agree that relationship building is important and crucial for a successful life, most do not have an intentional plan or even know how to go about developing deep lasting relationships. The quality of any relationship will be determined by the quality of what binds that relationship together. Friendship and marriage relationships break up for a lot of reasons, but the main factor is disunity over what binds the relationship together. My wife, Meshell and I always ask prospective spouses to evaluate the quality of friendships of the person they are praying about marrying. And often we will say something to the women like: “What makes you think he will be able to pursue your heart and develop a deep lasting relationship with you if he does not have deep lasting relationships with other men in his life?” One of the best qualifications and preparations for a healthy marriage is for men to be developing deep lasting relationships with other men and for women to develop deep lasting relationships with other women. Why? Because it will bring great accountability and community into your marriage. Also, married couples need healthy deep relationships (with same sex) outside their marriage to bring encouragement and growth to the marriage. Now, there is a great “lie” out there today and it is growing rapidly among our young folks. It says that your best friends can be either with a guy or a girl. Let me be very blunt – it is not healthy in any way for a woman’s best friend to be a man or a man’s best friend to be a woman. First, we were not created that way. Secondly, it radically confuses what manhood is and what womanhood is. And thirdly, those relationships should never be life long, because they would be inappropriate once one moves into a marriage relationship with someone else.
There are good relationships and then there are covenant relationships. A covenant relationship which is a friendship is what Jonathan and David experienced (1 and 2 Samuel). The first thing that bound their friendship together was a kindred spirit for the glory of God and His kingdom. Jonathan was a faith champion and had great conquests for God’s kingdom. When Jonathan saw David’s zeal for the Lord in killing Goliath his heart was united with David’s and they made a covenant friendship. Another thing that bound them together was that they honored each other and looked out for the interests of the other. We can see this covenant friendship principle in Philippians 2:3-11. Now, every marriage relationship should be a covenant relationship not just a good relationship. However, most marriages today are more of a contract than covenant. They commit to be together as long as they feel in love. This reveals a shallow quality of binding and will most likely not last. Again, the quality of any relationship will be determined by the quality of what binds that relationship together. And there is no higher quality standard for relationship than what our Lord has revealed within the Word for both friendship and marriage.
So, how do we develop not just good relationships but covenant relationships?
· Pray that God would grant them to you. He desires flourishing friendships for you now and into eternity.
· Position yourself in the right place. There is no greater place than within the family of God, the local church.
· Have a “putting roots down” mentality even if you know you are not going to be around a long time.
· Be intentional about who you plan to spend time with – plan it.
· Develop a Kingdom purpose behind what you do together.
· Learn to be completely vulnerable – holding nothing back.
· Be willing to get muddy. Every relationship needs to be tested – it’s the only way to grow.
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