“In relationships, these are defining moments; we either push through emotion to transparency, or retreat to opinions.”

A thought by Darren Whitehead, Jon Tyson, & Bill Hybels, (2011-07-19) from their book, Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You´ve Only Heard About (Kindle Locations 1725-1726). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

I had today, three of those defining moments with three of my Starbucks' friends. Each one was a very special situation that I value very much.

Now as you know I am a retired minister. Ministers have opinions about everything. We know what is right and wrong about every situation and are tempted to let you know how smart we are and how important we are. But I have found in life that opinions do not build relationships but many times hinder them and I am into relationships. That is why I spend so much time in Starbucks.

I know that many people have been hurt in relationships and that brings a certain wall between them and people but when you share who you really are to them, little by little your walls come down and so do theirs. And in each relationship there is that time when you need to take the risk.

Erwin McManus in his book, Chasing Daylight which I have quoted from a lot here said, “Failure is closely related to risk, which is closely related to success.” There is always the potential for you to be hurt in any relationship by being transparent but if you don’t risk it then there won’t be a fulfilling one just a shallow surface one.

Now there are real emotions, real fears in being honest but there is no depth, no real relationship without it. The truth is my wife, Margaret and I disagree sometimes and it sometimes hurts but our relationship is stronger because we have them. Our relationship is real, it is honest. We have found as we work through those disagreements and we start listening to the other side that understanding comes through and that strengthens the relationship. On the main issues of our life together we have agreement but we also have found that it is important to accept that we are both different and that makes our relationship strong because we are different.

We all need each other, we really do and many times there are failures but we can’t let those failures keep us from having successful relationships.

So how are you doing?

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