Winning Is The Goal

Someone said, “A healthy relationship requires choosing to love each other, even in those moments when you struggle to like each other.” All relationships (parents and children, couples, family and friends) have its high and low moments even those we see on social media or those who tell you that their love life is perfect.

There’s no perfect relationship. There are good and bad times and qualities in everyone … But when two persons who want to be in each other’s lives find a way to make it work … the relationship survives all odds.

The truth is, our real enemy isn’t each other but Satan who is walking back and forth throughout the earth looking ways to disrupt our lives.

There are times having no response in the heat of a disagreement is the best response. It means we know things have taken a turn for the worse…and nothing worthy and fruitful can come out of the issue at hand. So we use wisdom and call for a time out. During a basketball game, there are timeouts, pauses, and other breaks during a two hour and fifteen minutes game. Why not in a relationship that lasts longer than a basketball game?

A timeout doesn’t mean that you get into your car and drive out, or you put your music on blast….it simply means that you take a seat and then come back with a plan for a win win resolution. A team member playing doesn’t have an option to walk off the courts if they are losing the game. They sit on the bench and discuss a plan to win. Winning is the goal.

If you are in a parent/child relationship, or a marriage relationship, or any other kind of relationship, and you have one person who believes in you more than you believe in yourself … keep them around. That’s a good team.

If you believe in someone more than they believe in themselves .. stay close to them, they need you.

James 3:16-18 The Message (MSG) says,
Live Well, Live Wisely
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do:

1. Live well
2. Live wisely
3. Live humbly

It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.

1. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom
2. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom
3. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving.
4. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.

Real wisdom, God’s wisdom

1. Begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others
2. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced
3. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

Father God,

Help us to forgive others and ourselves when disagreements become hostile, and words get in the way. Help us in our human state of mind to remember that those crazy emotions when we are under an attack makes us very vulnerable to hurting others, and the truth is, our real enemy isn’t each other but Satan who is walking back and forth throughout the earth looking for ways to disrupt our lives. Help us to live well, live wisely, and to live humbly. Teach us to let go of those things we have no control over. In Jesus Name, Amen.