Going Deeper In Relationships part 4

Ok, Here's the last installment in this series on relationships. Have a great Valentines Day tomorrow and remember to try to really connect to the people in your life. Here's some ways that I believe can help us do that.


HOW DO WE GO DEEPER?


1. GO DEEPER INTO YOURSELF FIRST.

Self analysis is where going deeper in our relationships begins. What is there inside of me that is preventing me from going deeper in my relationships? What roadblocks are keeping me from opening up and letting people in? What is holding me back from being real with people? These are the self analytical questions that will form the foundation of your relationship building process.

There’s an old saying that I’m sure you’ve heard before… “ People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Do you and I genuinely care about people or do we really just want them to care about us and meet our needs? Do we truly love people or do we just want them to measure up to our standards? It’s easy for all of us to inadvertently use people to define us, approve of us and meet our needs. This is manipulation not true relationship.

Here are some more questions to ponder:

Are we only comfortable around people who are like us or who share certain common interests?

Do we constantly surround ourselves with people who make us feel good about ourselves?

Do we have certain requirements that we have already predetermined in our minds that we apply to whether or not we are going to like a certain person? For instance:

I like hyper people.

I don’t like hyper people.

I don’t get along with introverts.

I hate control freaks.

People have to make me laugh to be good friends with me.

Usually we are our own worst enemies when it comes to developing deep relationships. Nobody can measure up to our endless and impossible standards. We have to be able to recognize that we do this on a subconscious level on purpose to keep people at arms length. We must recognize our own self sabotaging. We need to embrace the reality that we are afraid of deep relationships. It’s imperative that we deal with the fears in our own lives first.

How do you view people? Are people a means to end for you? Do you endlessly seek people’s approval? Do people’s opinions of you define who you are?

We have to truly ask ourselves who our source is. Is it God or other people? People were not meant to be your source. Only God can fulfill that role in your life. If we are getting our deep emotional needs for identity, approval and definition met by God then we don’t have to try to get that from others. Other people can’t give it to you anyway because they don’t have that ability. So when we are putting those kinds of expectations and pressure on relationships it’s no wonder they crumble and cannot go deep.

PEOPLE CANNOT MEET OUR DEEPEST NEEDS!!!! It’s that simple. Write it down. People meet needs in our lives but our deep needs are only and can only be met by God.

Are we spending time with God? Are we in His word? Are we allowing His Holy Spirit to define us and give us our identity?

In many of our relationships we stay on the surface levels of role playing and expectations. This is what I call the “shoulds.” There is the way it is and the way it should be and the way it is wins every time. The way it is, is reality, the way it should be is fantasy. In fact, when the way it should be comes to pass it is no longer a should but a reality so in reality “shoulds” are never reality.

She’s my wife so she should do this or be this way.

He’s my leader he should be this way or do these things or talk like this.

She’s my daughter and she should do these things or those things.

We sacrifice real deep relationships for the illusion of relationship which is role playing. Doing all the things we are supposed to do socially or culturally and expecting everyone to keep playing those roles instead of trying to discover who someone really is and why they are the way they are.


When we are able to stop trying to make people into our own molds and we stop trying to get our needs met from others then we can truly go deeper in our relationships. Depth in our relationships becomes a discovery that we share together. Getting to know each other, being there for each other and experiencing life together not using each other, or judging each other but really truly loving each other.

2. Listen More, Speak less.

Did you ever wonder why God gave us two ears and only one mouth? Because we should listen more than we should speak. I’m not talking about the appearance of listening or relying on gimmicks to give the impression of listening but genuinely listening. Not thinking about the next thing you are going to say or wondering when the conversation will turn back to you but really just listening.

Since I have been living in Panama in a new culture learning my second language (Spanish) I have been forced to listen in order to understand. This goes against my nature. It’s not easy for me.

David Augsburger said “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”

Proverbs 10:19 “In a multitude of words sin is not lacking but he who restrains his lips is wise.”

Proverbs 4:7 says, “wisdom is the principal thing therefore get wisdom and in all your getting get understanding.” Do we listen to understand or just so that we can answer? Do we try to understand the deeper roots underneath why people act the way they do? Do we try to understand who they are?


3. DEEP RELATIONSHIPS TAKE TIME TO DEVELOP

“The time you invest to deeply understand the people you love brings tremendous dividends in open communication. Many of the problems that plague families and marriages simply don’t have time to fester and develop.” Steven Covey in “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”

Deep relationships happen they cannot be fabricated. We need to pro actively take an approach to relationships in which we create opportunities for going deeper to occur. You cannot force, fabricate or fake deep moments. They have to happen on their own as a result of time invested as well as attention, care and trust applied. When two people know that they can trust each other and they know that the other person cares then depth occurs.

This is difficult. It’s easier to stay on the surface. We have our face book pals that we only have face value or surface level relationships with. We text all day long and really don’t say anything of depth about ourselves or ask anything of depth about others because it is easier and more comfortable not to. It doesn’t take as much time and most importantly there is no risk of rejection. But we have to get real and face the fact that these are not authentic relationships. They are pseudo relationships.

Are you too busy to have deep relationships? Are you too busy doing things with people and “having fun” that you don’t have time to really know people in your life and to be known? Real deep relationships take time to develop. You can’t generate them out of thin air.

We can get like this in the church can’t we? We can become so program oriented and activity driven that we do all these things together and we talk about all the things we do together but we don’t talk to each other. We don’t talk about ourselves to each other. We don’t talk about anything deep. We talk about our shared experiences. We talk about movies or politics or shared interests but we don’t talk about who we are or how we feel about much of anything.

Husband’s (I am a husband this includes me) when was the last time you took your wife out to dinner or had a quiet evening at home with her and really talked to her and listened to her and talked about each other? I’m not talking about just doing a date night because if you really don’t have anything to say to each other then date nights become obligatory and routine. I’m talking about talking about…not your job, not even the kids but her and You!!! And all the ladies said amen!!! That sounds scary doesn’t it? Especially as men we don’t know what to say to our wives half the time.

We need to create time for deep relationships. Have you ever called a friend and said let’s go out to eat just you and me? With no special reason, event, context or activity but just to be together and talk?


4. Ask better questions to go deeper.

Now that you have set aside some time to build relationship and you are in your non scripted, non event oriented environment, what do you say? This can be a bit tricky. Ask people questions. Get them talking about themselves but at a certain point ask them things like…
• How does that make you feel?
• What is that like?
• Tell me more about that.
• That must be very difficult for you.
• What is your opinion about this or that.

We have to be careful not to do this in an evasive or inappropriate way. You have to be comfortable with people first and they have to be comfortable with you. We are talking about going deeper with the relationships that we already have.


5. BE INTENTIONAL


If we want deep relationships then we have to initiate the process. If we want to be understood then we have to first be a person who seeks to understand others. If we want to be known then we have to show interest in knowing others. If we want friends then we have to be a friend. If we can forget about ourselves long enough to truly care about and know someone else then we have already taken the first step into deeper relationships. It’s not all about us.

Start today with the people who are already in your life. Start by asking deeper questions, creating more time, making sure your motives are right, spending more time with God so that you do not need to try to get your needs met from others. It starts with you making a decision to go deeper.


WHO DO YOU PURSUE DEEP RELATIONSHIPS WITH?

Not everyone. I’m not advocating that you should try to develop deep relationships with fifty people or that you need to have this level of depth with everyone you know. There are some people in our lives that we need to be a certain thing to a teacher or a mentor or an acquaintance. There are some natural limitations to who you can go deep with. Many people aren’t ready. Also, unless you are married I would not suggest trying to go deeper in your relationships with someone of the opposite sex. I have heard people say that you are lucky if you have one true friend you’re entire life. I think that in many cases that is true but I do not think we need to settle for that. If we are intentional and proactive we should be trying to go as deep as we can with as many appropriate relationships that we have.

There are the obvious ones, husbands and wives, parents and children. When it comes to friends it is not always as clear. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in this endeavor. Ask God to bring people into your life with whom you can have this level of relationship. Ask God to lead you as you are with various people. What stage are they at? What stage are you at?

I do believe that we can go deeper with everyone to some extent. Not everyone can be your best friend but we can get more serious about our relationships and go deeper than our current level with just about everyone in our lives.

Don’t just settle for the illusion or the appearance of deep relationships. Don’t be afraid to lock arms with the people in your lives. Not just hold hands but lock arms. Let’s make a commitment in our hearts to go deeper.