We are made for relationship. And, we pretty much suck at building them. We want to make things right with those few that we love. We know that it’s possible, we tasted it once or twice. We can’t remember the recipe and we can’t seeem to find the crucial ingredients. Yet we keep yearning. We are poison and wine, so are our relationships.
Our inability to build and to be built, doesn’t seem to dull our desire for at least one or two relationships that transform. So, we continue to go to the well, hoping that the next one will bring forth “living water” and quench our deep thirst to be understood.
Every day, I encounter this foundational problem with client after client and team after team. All want transformational relationships at their root but have decided that transactional is more realistic, so they settle. This is normal and alright for awhile. Over time and through adversity, this recipe takes it’s toll. Slowly our hearts harden and our spirits suffer a downer that drains, drains, and then drains us dry.
Maybe we’re working the wrong angle, so to speak. Maybe, our desire for relationship with each other is actually pointing us to leave the horizontal axis and go vertical. Maybe, we are made to get our relationship right, FIRST, with our maker. As we humbly understand our position beneath our maker and submit to His authority, maybe just maybe, we’ll do a bit better with our horizontal humans.
We are made for relationship. And, as we gain clarity vertically, FIRST, we’ve got a chance at keeping the horizontal ones on the straight and narrow. Funny how much sense this makes. The problem changes when we work the right angle. And there’s the real problem. Working the right angle requires me to understand my proper position. Working the right angle requires me to look up, humbly. Working the right angle feels like it’s giving up some kinda control. So, we mostly try to walk the straight and narrow with another on our own. And, we end up with so many humans feeling like they’re ALONE.
God, help me understand that my struggles in my relationships are meant to help me see my need for some verticality. God, help me look up FIRST. God, help me work the right angle. God, help me…
BUILT TO LEAD 
July is clearly a good month for great blogs. Thank you, Toto.
Saturday I got to officiate a wedding with a brief message that makes a great AND….so here it is:
We enter life and marriage and leadership…well, mostly CLUELESS. Here’s four places BTL-style to find the clues that will guide you well in life:
Look UP. You can’t have a right horizontal without a right vertical. Thank you God you are a perfect North Star. Thank you we can say “I Do” to your invitation to come into our life so that we can do life not A-Lone but as ALL-one. One big L of a difference.
Look WITHIN. So many of these blogs are about leading ourself. Part of getting the vertical right leads to the ULTIMATE “together we improve” — God being in you as THE expert in ONEness and relationships — to help you get to the root of what you need to work on next and how to have the ultimate security to be a learner not a deflector.
Look to your SPOUSE. This is God’s mouthpiece in your life — to give you belief, courage and humility as you need it. Thank you Toto and Miss for your 30 year milestone…AND your confident hope that your best years lie ahead of you.
Look to those AROUND you. Be thankful for your truth-tellers and your fellow builders…and even for the wounds of your enemies which are better than kisses from a friend. ASK them questions to understand them better and to help understand YOU better.
I’m reading Deep Change by Robert Quinn and just re-read 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by the late Steven Covey who just died July 16 of injuries from an April bicycling accident. Thank you Robert, thank you Steven, thank you Toto, and thank you GOD that you prioritize building a strong CORE above all else.
It takes acute pain, leads to eustress (not YOU-stress), and begins to have profound transformation first in you then in the lives of others.
Leaders are believers, and leaders are connectors. As Toto has pointed out numerous times lately, “our chiefest want in life is someone who shall make us do what we CAN” — Emerson (not Bill Self). Look to those four places and you fill find all the clues you need.