Five Easy-ish Ways to Love the People Closest to You
1. Assume the best motives. We all make assumptions in our relationships with others. What if we worked to make all of our assumptions positive instead of negative? Believing the very best of our friends, family, co-workers, and fellow church members is almost guaranteed to yield positive results, and it helps people to feel understood instead of maligned, even if they didn’t handle something perfectly. Think of how much kindness would be injected into our daily interactions if we approached it all with the assumption that our people are trying their best, have our best interests in mind, and are coming from a place of love.
2. Be slow to speak. Our natural inclination is to speak up, especially when it comes to the people we’re the most comfortable around. But it is often wise to listen two or three times more than we speak. If we’re always dumping our immediate reactions on people without taking some time to think through what we would want to say, how we should say it, or if we should say it, we’re creating a pattern of conflict, continually saying things in the heat of the moment that we don’t mean. If we listen, wait, pray, and think instead of saying everything that comes to our minds, we are sure to have better things to say when it’s time to speak.
3. Apologize immediately. One of the hardest things to do in this life for some of us is to say, “I’m sorry,” but those are two of the most powerful words for any relationship. They aren’t magic words, and they don’t mean much if we say them in a tone of voice that doesn’t sound sorry at all. But if we sincerely apologize as soon as we are able, and if we truly express sorrow for how we have wronged someone, God can use that to do amazing healing work in our relationships.
4. Forgive out loud. It’s important that we audibly say that we forgive each other. We may feel sometimes that we are showing forgiveness by ending our silent treatment or by smiling or by hugging it out. But it’s still important to say the words out loud. “I forgive you” is like medicine for a troubled heart, especially when someone has shown remorse for what they’ve said or done that hurt you, but also if they haven’t. Mercy is a great gift that we can give through the power of the Holy Spirit.
5. Err on the side of kindness. We can all think of times when we would feel justified in raging all day about something. We can all think of times when others should understand why we’re in a bad mood or why we reacted the way we did to something. But kindness is a better choice than raging, even justifiably, or grouching, even on a bad day. Imagine that we reach the end of our lives and our friends, family, co-workers, and fellow church members gather at our grave. Wouldn’t we love to know that they would say, “No matter what kind of day she was having, no matter what terrible thing she was facing, she was kind to me.” I can’t think of a clearer expression of what the fruits of the Spirit should look like in a follower of Christ.
I said these things are easy-ish because, while they’re fairly simple, they’re often hard to live out. Our loved ones can get a glimpse of what Jesus is like if we put some of these concepts into practice in our dayto- day lives, knowing that it isn’t through our own power that we can do good things, but only through the power of God in our lives. He is willing to help us. Are we willing to try?