Inter-personal part 5
Longsuffering is a very important, vital part of any inter-personal relationship. Because nobody matches up with anybody in every way all the time. Even the people we love most in the world... can get on our nerves. People aren't robots. They are GOING to do things we don't agree with, or don't want them to do. People are going to be who THEY are more often then they are going to be who WE want them to be. And that's ok. That's where grace, and mercy, and forgivness, and longsuffering come into play. Because if you clip someone like a coupon everytime they do something (or don't do something) that you think they shouldn't (or should) do... you're going to be left all by yourself real quick. Looking around and wondering why nobody wants to be friends with you. Well, because you didn't develope those relationships. You didn't build and strengthen those bonds and connections. You didn't build on that foundation of love. What you wanted was more important than anything else. That kind of expectation--giving someone what they want every second of every day--is impossilble to live up to. It's too much. Especially when we, as a species, are so universally bad at letting people know what our wants and needs are. "Well you should have known!" How? By reading your mind? My point is... we need to work at these relationships. Love is maximum effort. Giving everything you have and everything you are to someone. Laying your life down for them. Esteeming them higher than yourself. Seeing a need in someone else and meeting it, if at all possible. I once had someone say it to me like this: "If I'm looking out for you, and you're looking out for me... then neither one of us needs to worry about ourselves." So simple, but so powerful. And that's what I've tried to make my relationships look like. That's why I say, "I've got your back" so much. Even to the point where my mom saw a shirt that said that and bought it for me. Go big or go home is what I usually claim as my motto. Or when people tell me, "Never mind," I tell them that's what I do best. But in reality, what I've tried to build my life on is having people's backs. Going the extra mile for them. Making sure I'm doing whatever I can do in order to help people. And, listen, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here. I'm simply trying to illustrate the way I think God set this thing up as. The Divine Order. Give, and it shall be given unto you, right? Which is not to say that God hasn't already given us everything we need--receiving it and releasing it is what makes it real--but simply to say that instead of trying to get, get, get--especially when it comes to dealing with other people--our focus should be on giving what we've got. Trusting God to take care of us and then using what we've got to take care of each other. Letting people be who they are, or who they THINK they are until they know better, and loving them anyway. Loving people no matter what. That's the foundation that our relationships must be built on, if we want them to be strong, healthy, and successful. So sometimes you can't always get what YOU want, but you can always give people what THEY need!