Quotes about Relationships

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Rule of Life. PRAYER Scripture Silence and Solitude Daily Office (Prayer) Study REST Sabbath Simplicity Play and Recreation WORK/ACTIVITY Service and Mission Care for the Physical Body RELATIONSHIPS Emotional Health Family Community (Companions for the Journey

Mature spiritual leadership is forged in the crucible of difficult conversations, the pressure of conflicted relationships, the pain of setbacks, and dark nights of the soul.

While I was disciplined in spiritual practices, the people closest to me (starting with my wife, Geri) did not experience me as more loving with each passing year.

loving well is the essence of true spirituality.

the love of Jesus in you is the greatest gift you have to give to others. Who you are as a person — and specifically how well you love — will always have a larger and longer impact on those around you than what you do. Your being with God (or lack of being with God) will trump, eventually, your doing for God every time.

Your work and relationship realities. Our work remains "thorns and thistles" (Genesis 3:18). It is hard. We never totally finish. There is always a grief in never having complete fulfillment. Relationships will not be perfect until heaven. Who wouldn't like a perfect, loving church where everyone has the time, energy, and maturity to love everyone else perfectly! We must grieve that limit also or we will demand from them something they cannot give.

I may not agree with you or you with me. Yet I can remain in relationship with you. I don't have to detach from you, reject you, avoid you, or criticize you to validate myself. I can be myself apart from you.

Let the person who cannot be alone beware of community. Let the person who is not in community beware of being alone."17

Scripture Reading: Mark 3:31—35 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.

Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.

The place where we most belong is not our neighborhood, our nation, our company, or even our family, but our church—the city of God—that caring community where we are known and loved, and where we find deeply supportive faith-building relationships.