Your relationships can only be as healthy as you are
Only 27% of men report that they have at least six good friends, yet 58% of women do. What keeps men from having deeper relationships?
One sentence summarizes the reason we don’t. This one sentence also has the potential to revolutionize every relationship that we have. It is:
If you try to build a relationship with another person before you have done the difficult work of getting whole or healthy on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to complete yourself and they’ll fall flat.
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Why is this true? Because no one was ever designed to complete you. No one has that job description, because that's the job of the Holy Spirit working in you.
We help each other on the pathway to wholeness, but ultimately, it’s our responsibility. And getting healthy and whole is a process that never ends. It doesn't matter how old we are, we're all in process. Nobody ever arrives.
To get healthy, start by locking on to your profound significance. From a mountain of social science research, studied by a team of researchers, I discovered that the Apostle Paul had figured this out when he wrote the book of Ephesians:
“I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-18 MSG).
In other words, understand that God loves you.
If you struggle with that sometimes, as I do, tune in to the most important conversation you will ever have. You have it every day, and even at night because it’s 24/7. It is your internal dialogue, your self-talk.
If you could take a computer chip out of the back of your head and tabulate your internal dialogue for the last 24 hours on your laptop, if you’re like most men, you would discover that 78% of your self-talk was negative.
Maybe there are tapes from the home you grew up in, an old boss or coach, that you replay continually declaring that you don’t measure up.
The first step toward real wholeness is understanding how profoundly significant you are in the eyes of God.
The second step to getting healthy is to lock on what I call “unswerving authenticity.” This has to do with being true to you.
Many men suffer from a “disease to please” because they feel like they're not measuring up. To feel more respected, they want to be accepted into some group, or make more money, or something similar.
“Unswerving authenticity” means being true to you, and to the path God has called you to travel. Paul wrote, “I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got” (1 Corinthians 9:26 MSG).
God doesn’t want any of us sitting on our hands or strolling off down a path that goes nowhere. We need to get on and stay on the path that God called us to travel.
The third step on the path to total healing is self-giving love. This is when we begin to give our lives away. You enlarge your capacity to see the world from somebody else's perspective.
When you get a lock on self-giving love, you transcend your own boundaries and recognize other people's needs. You begin to love the life you live. Life is never the same when you get a lock on this.
The greatest relationship lecture that was ever given, and the greatest sermon that was ever preached was Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” recorded by Matthew.
Jesus said in essence that when somebody asks you to go one mile, do something crazy, do something radical — walk another mile as well. In other words, do something they won't see coming.
Walking the extra mile can be extravagant or small, and it can be done every single day. Walking the first mile might simply be taking out the trash but walking the “extra” mile is taking it out and not mentioning it or complaining about it. It’s a habit that becomes a lifestyle.
Remember, your relationships can only be as healthy as you are. To become healthy, to be the person that God has called you to be, start with understanding your profound significance. That’s the part that has to do with God.
Then adopt unswerving authenticity. That has to do with you, with being true to the path God has prepared for you.
And then adopt self-giving love. This has to do with everyone else. Paul wrote to pour ourselves out for each other with acts of love. That is when your relationships will deepen and expand to include others.
This feature is an excerpt of Dr. Les Parrott’s keynote address from Promise Keepers’ 2021 Men’s Conference at AT&T Stadium. To hear his full address, and from other uplifting leaders like Samuel Rodriguez, AR Bernard, Nick Vujicic, and more, access the conference here, anytime.
Les Parrott, Ph.D., is an author of Christian self-help books, a professor of psychology at Northwest University, and an ordained Nazarene minister. He is the creator of the SYMBIS Assessment and the founder of the Parrott Institute for Healthy Relationships at Olivet Nazarene University.
