Love and Respect

 A few years ago, as I began dealing with teenagers in my house, I read a book called Love and Respect in the Family by Emerson Eggerichs.  The book talks about how, while both men/boys and women/girls want to be loved and respected, men/boys focus on the respect first and women/girls focus on the love first.  This made a lot of sense to me and I have found it helpful as I deal with my teenagers, but I had an epiphany yesterday about this.  Too often, we are trying to "make" people love or respect us.  This backfires in big ways.  When we are trying to force others to respect us, we become bullies.  When we try to make someone love us, we become needy and self serving.  Behaviors that try to make others love and respect us only serve to drive them away.  Instead of insisting others respect us, we need to act respectable.  Instead of doing whatever it takes for others to love us, we need to act lovable.  When we are acting respectable and lovable, we are focusing on respecting others, serving others, loving others.  

There is one big huge lie the enemy puts out there for us that we all buy into - the lie that we have to look out for ourselves and take care of ourselves.  God created us to let Him look out for us and take care of us.   He created us to serve Him, first and foremost, and, in serving Him, serve others.  When we buy into the lie, we are miserably trying to make sure we get all our needs met.  When we live in the truth, we joyfully know that all our needs are met and we can simply live for Him.  

Let's act respectable and lovable and leave the results to the Father.

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