Did you know that you have the power to make any relationship in you life better without the other person ever changing?  Today we’re talking about how to better relationships and what the Bible says about how you should approach the relationships in your life.

Resources Mentioned:

Thoughts Matter Episode: https://ashleyvarner.com/thoughts 

Unmet Needs Episode: https://ashleyvarner.com/unmet-needs 

Get Ashley’s ground breaking program The Mindset Reset (https://ashleyvarner.com/mindset). It is a self-paced program made to guide you to taking your thoughts captive and finally control your emotions, so they stop controlling you! 

Highlights from the Episode:

What is a Relationship

Relationship is from the root word relate. Relate is a verb (action word) that means to make a connection between. It can also mean identify with.

And where does connection happen? It’s all mental. It’s all in our thoughts. So I want you to start thinking of your relationship with someone as your thoughts about that person.  

The relationship you have with someone is simply your thoughts about that person.

How can I say that?

Most people think that their relationships are based on things the other person has done or said.  And then we assume that we feel a certain way toward them because of what they’ve done in the past (good or bad).

But if you’ve been with me for awhile, then you know that our circumstances don’t determine our feelings (check out the Thoughts Matter episode). Our thoughts determine our feelings. 

And often our thoughts are based on expectations. 

For instance, if the President of the United States doesn’t call me on my birthday, it doesn’t matter to me because I don’t have that expectation. If my husband forgot my birthday, it would matter to me because I do have an expectation of him to remember it.

This is also why people can have different relationships with the same person.

Think of a bully you knew in high school.  You and their mom will think different thoughts about them, even though they’re the same person. You’ll have a different relationship with them than their mom does because of the thoughts you have about them.

A person’s relationship with you is the other person’s thoughts about you.

So if a relationship is your thoughts about someone else, the same is true for the other half of the relationship.

A person’s relationship with you is comprised of their thoughts about you.  

This is why some relationships feel lop-sided.  Two people may have a relationships, but one friend may have different thoughts about the other friend.  The first friend may want to have a relationship where they text each other everyday and take fun trips together.  The second friend may want a relationship where they text a few times a week and have coffee a couple times a month.

It’s the same two people, but their thoughts and expectations are different.

And that brings me to the third facet of a relationship, and that is your thoughts about what the other person thinks about you.

Ahh, doesn’t this get us into so much drama?

We start to assume that we know what the other person is thinking. And those assumptions lead us to start thinking different thoughts about them.l

Have you ever been misunderstood or someone took something that you did or said in the wrong way? 

It affected their relationship with you because of their thoughts about your thoughts.  They were upset because of things they thought about what you thought of them.

Hopefully that’s not confusing!

Have you ever heard a friend say, “I know she thinks my hair cut is ugly.”  Or “She just thinks she so much better than me.”

That’s what I’m talking about.

Those thoughts also affect the relationship. 

This actually reminds me of a classic book that I recently read again, “The Secret Garden.” 

What does the Bible say about relating with other people? 

When you realize that relationships are simply your thoughts about other people, it’s a huge step in taking your thoughts captive. 

See, once you take your thoughts captive in this area, you can have a better relationship with anyone in your life by changing those thoughts.

And the other person doesn’t have to change at all for this to happen.

So how do you change our thoughts about other people? 

By trading your thoughts for God’s thoughts. Here are a few things God’s Word says:

Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Tenderhearted. Hurting when others hurt. Caring about the pain you cause someone. 

Of course, the Golden Rule, Luke 6:31, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”

John 15:12, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

This is a tall order! We’re called to unconditional love like Jesus does. You can choose to love no matter what. You can choose to say, even if he forgot my birthday, I still love him. Even if she left me out, I choose to love her.

Philippians 2:4, “let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

This means before you do something, think about how it will effect others as well.  Awhile back, I was in a situation where I felt justified in making a pretty big change in my life. I was going to step down from a position in a not so peaceful way. In the end, I decided not to make that transition until I could do so in a peaceful way because of the way it would have impacted other people.

I still made the transition, but I did it in a way that would make the least negative impact on others as possible.

Romans 12:17-18, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

This means that sometimes you apologize even if you don’t think you did anything wrong for the sake of the relationship. I know this is controversial. Some people believe that you shouldn’t apologize if you’ve done nothing wrong. 

I think that part of humility and being humble is validating someone’s feelings even when you know that they are unfounded.  We’re doing all this work on our mindset, but not everyone is and it’s not our place to tell someone, “you aren’t feeling that way because of something I did, you’re feeling that way because of your own thoughts about what I did. Ashley said so!”

When we validate the feelings of others by simply saying, “I’m sorry that what I did made you feel that way. I want you to know that wasn’t my intention.”  

This is what Paul meant when he said, as long as it depends on your, live at peace with everyone.

And the last verse I want to share is actually the biggest: 

Matthew 5:44, “…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

I know that the word enemy is a big harsh word. But if we’re called to pray for our enemies, shouldn’t we also be praying for those people in our lives that we wouldn’t call enemies but are still difficult people to get along with? 

Most of the time those in between relationships are the hardest because we know we need to pray for our friends and enemies, but what about that friend that always cancels coffee at the last minute? Or that family member that always seems to say things about your kids that get under your skin?

If we make the decision to pray for these people, God will begin to work in our hearts and mend the relationship by healing our thoughts about that person, even if they never change.

With this knowledge, I hope that you finish out this week evaluating the relationships in your life and how you can improve them simply by thinking differently about that person.  It’s really freeing to know that you don’t have to wait to have a better friendship until the other person changes. It’s not our place to change them, it’s God’s. In the mean time, we can be a reflection of Him by taking our thoughts captive and thinking tenderhearted, peaceful, and yes, even loving thoughts about them.

That’s a true picture of loving people the way God does.

That’s all I have for today, make sure to stay tuned next week, we’re going to talk about actions versus intentions and it’s an episode I’ve been wanting to share for awhile. It’s a mindset shift that I made about 5 or 6 years ago that has completely changed the way I see other people and myself.  I know you’ll love it! I’ll see you then! 

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